As part of a greater plan to spur Dubai’s economy, improve
public planning and enhance the quality of life for Dubai citizens, Dubai leaders have announced that the United Arab Emirates government plans to make one quarter of all
transportation in the city driverless by 2030.
Sheikh
Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice president and prime minister
of the UAE, took to Twitter in April to announce the new
driverless car benchmark. Other current projects include an infrastructure
investment plan for improving highways, railways, airports and bridges, along
with various types of efforts to make Dubai a smart city with responsive
infrastructure and achieve sustainable resource use.
Leaders will continue to look at the feasibility of
driverless cars and other innovations at a national transportation expo event
in October.
“We look forward to the participation of hundreds of
high-level experts and specialists in the transport and smart cities sectors
from all over the world at the second edition of NATRANS Expo.” Abdullah Alkathiri, director general of the Federal Transport Authority, said
in a May 16 press release. “We also expect 100 exhibitors and 75 speakers from
global institutions and bodies concerned to attend NATRANS Expo.”
Aram Nerguizian, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic
and International Studies, lived in the UAE for 18 years. Nerguizian
specializes in the study of strategic and military dynamics in the region and has
written a number of books on the Middle East.
“It’s good to set a target,”
Nerguizian told the Gulf News Journal Wednesday, referring to whether the smart car plan is ultimately feasible.
Nerguizian said Qatar and other neighbors have also used 2030 as the benchmark for improvement
projects. “What you can’t plan for is how much of this technology will evolve,
and how fast. … The danger is in overstating or understating how complex the
technology is.”
Nerguizian also said a lot of the current efforts involve
changing direction from how Dubai has handled urban development in the past.
Citing major bottlenecks in transportation and other issues, Nerguizian talked
about how cities like Dubai that were much smaller in the 1970s and 1980s
started out on “organic path” to urban development but found it hard to
handle the boom of later years.
“That’s why you have so much of a rethink.” Nerguizian
said.
In theory, Nerguizian said, lots of things are possible in
the region. For example, the literature around current UAE planning mentions
the controversial and the very theoretical “Hyperloop” high-speed tube transportation
devised by Tesla owner and tech pioneer Elon Musk.
“A lot of this is about testing and technology.” Nerguizian said,
noting that if there is a place where hyperloop would work, it would be a place
like Dubai, a place where urban planners have the room to introduce the
infrastructure that’s needed, for example, straight tracks and tubes.
“Kudos for them for trying it.” Nerguizian said. “UAE has
always been about attracting the best and brightest.”
