LONDON: Dubai has enlisted the help of a UK company in a bid to modernize the emirate’s transport system by building a monorail.
The company, BeemCar, creates alternatives to traditional modes of transport, with an emphasis on being environmentally friendly.
The proposed system, which will be a cross between a traditional monorail and a cable car, will transport “pods” of four people to and from their destinations, suspended high above Dubai’s busy road network, according to a newspaper report.
The emirate hopes that the system will help ease congestion and facilitate its plans to have driverless technology transport a quarter of its population by 2030.
The agreement with BeemCar was backed by the UK government, which sees the Gulf region as a potential business partner as the country looks to its future outside the EU. UK Transport Minister Chris Heaton-Harris was present at the signing of the agreement between BeemCar and the emirate.
Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Ƶ have all become bywords for radical technological advancement in recent years.
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Dubai hopes the proposed monorail will help facilitate its plans to have driverless technology for a quarter of its population by 2030.
Dubai and Abu Dhabi have already revealed plans to work with Los Angeles-based company Virgin Hyperloop One to link the two emirates via a hyperloop train network that would theoretically see people travel the 140-km distance in 12 minutes, reaching top speeds of up to 1,000 km per hour using vacuum technology.
The UAE’s space program is based in Dubai, which is set to launch a space probe to Mars this year.
Meanwhile, Abu Dhabi is constructing Masdar City, a vast development centered on moving the emirate away from oil dependence, being both car-free and relying chiefly on solar electricity for power.
Ƶ signed a deal with Virgin Hyperloop One in 2019 to build a 56-km test track and research facility north of Jeddah, with a view to building a network in the Kingdom in the future.
At the time, Virgin said that if successful, a hyperloop could reduce the travel time from Jeddah to Riyadh from 10 hours to 76 minutes.
The Kingdom is also building a technologically visionary megacity, the Red Sea-based Neom in the northwest of the country, on the borders with Jordan and Egypt.
