The Liberty Bus

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You know when a day goes to complete ratshit? When you had plans and they gang aft agley? It was that sort of day last Thursday. Scheduled to be in Warqa for festive nibbles with pals, I'm still in the office at six with a drive to Ajman and back ahead of me and every road in Dubai is crimson on Google Maps. The MBZ is just awful, blocked up south of Mirdif.

And so, desperate, I set off to find The Last Snicket, the tiny gap out by the RTA depot in the desert beyond Mizhar that breaches the insane wall of concrete lumps that very transport authority has constructed in the sands that border two parts of the same country.

I don't know what I was thinking. I mean, if I'd sat out the MBZ mess, I'd have been through in 30 minutes. But something in me, the spirit that sets salmon carving their way across the world's oceans to seek a nice, Scottish river to die in, craved freedom. Driving along the sandy track by the barrier in the darkness, I started to doubt myself. Was this really the smart thing to do? Of course it was, I was moving, wasn't I?

The little gap was closed. They've been plugging gaps opening in their barrier daily. And they've gone further out into the remote desert than ever before. You know that feeling when you just have to keep going around the next corner in the wadi to see what's there? Yep, that. I carry on up sandy hill and down bosky dell, finding gap after gap has been plugged with the ground all around churned up by the tractors they've used to pile up great walls of sand to reinforce their barrier. Until I get to The Last Snicket, literally a few hundred yards from the Emirates Road, the E611, in the deep, deep desert.

They've even blocked that, something I discover as I hurl the car over the piles they've made in their blocking frenzy, the Pajero bucking on the rough, soft sand and then lurching down a steep slope into a deep, pitch black bowl. That's when The Fear hit me, the nasty tingle you get when you know something really, really bad's about to happen and you're powerless to stop it. There are two ways out of the bowl, a long slope that appears to have no ending in the darkness and a steep boggy little track out to the right, all churned up and deeply rutted soft sand. I can see very little because my lights are pointed downwards as I slip down the slope. I'm going too slowly, slam my foot down on the throttle and go for the boggy sand, knowing in my heart of hearts I don't have enough speed. Sure enough, half-way up, I dig in and grind to a halt. I reverse to try and regain some momentum to get back up the steep incline I've come down, but it's useless. I stick right there in the cusp of the bowl in the desert blackness.

I say some rude things and then abandon ship. It's too late, too remote and too dark to do anything else. I clamber up the soft dunes and strike out towards the bright lights of the labour camp that sits between the RTA depot and the snaking lights of the 611. Shoes filled with sand, I realise what a spectacle I present when labourers stop to gape at me - a man has walked out of the inky darkness of the desert wearing a blue suit and carrying a laptop bag. I do what any decent Englishman would do and wave, bidding them a cheery 'Good evening'.

I find a gentleman wearing a 'security' uniform. 'Good evening,' I smile. 'Is there any chance I could get a taxi from here?'

He is speechless, but the chap next to him has more presence of mind. 'Where going?' He asks. 'To Sharjah,' I tell him. He grabs my arm and propels me to a nearby bus full of labourers. 'Sharjah, Sharjah, one way!' he shouts at the driver. A jockey seat is put down and patted by a chap in tatty blue overalls. 'Majlis!' he calls out above the coughing engine noise, a broken-toothed grin welcoming me into the fuggy interior. And we set off, some thirty labourers on their way to enjoy a wander around Rolla and me in my blue suit, poker straight and somewhat bewildered, if the truth be told.

We drive up through a track in the darkness, finally breaking out onto the road by the RTA depot and then through Mizhar and Muhaisna. The chaps are nattering away, cheerful and buoyed by the coming weekend. Their chatter is a constant tide of shouts, laughter and tubercular coughing set against the rise and fall of the clanking engine. We hit bad traffic and a moan goes up from the bus, 'Sonapour, Sonapour,' they tut and sigh. It's as if there's nothing good ever to be got from Sonapour, the source of the traffic snarl-up.

They let me off at National Paints and I bid them a cheery, and genuinely thankful, farewell and get a taxi. The taxi driver has clearly never seen a man in a suit get off a labour bus before and it takes me a while before I can get him to listen to where I want to go.

For what it's worth, I eventually made it back down to Warqa only half an hour late.

The next day I went back in the company of pal Derek to see how we could possibly unstick the Paj. It was pretty hopeless, but some tyre letting down and tugging later, we managed to extricate ourselves both from the bowl. And then, because we could, we pootled over the blocked snicket and home to Sharjah.

It's safe to say, though, that my snicketing days are now over. I enjoyed the new experience of the Liberty Bus but honestly don't fancy making a habit of it...

The Childish Game Of Number Plates

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sarah and I for some time now have been playing a most diverting and totally childish game - number plate spotting. It's remarkable how seriously a 'good number' is taken here in the Emirates - landline, PO Box, mobile, number plate. All of these should reflect a chap's status and so, ideally, be in single figures or failing that all the same digit or otherwise auspicious. A palindrome is always good...

Car license plates in the UAE consist of a single letter and then a number. A pilot with A 777 is therefore top banana, while H 71534 is a complete duffer altogether. Clearly, a number like 25 denotes super-star status and we have actually seen one such number plate pull a massive wheelspin in front of police officers who initially started towards their bikes then saw the plate and just shrugged it off.

You'll often see the swankier breed of car on the UAE's roads sporting 30503 or 12121 and we have taken to giggling at those who have just missed the mark, for instance a Lambo with a 24749 plate has us laughing and doing 'You had one job...' impersonations.

Yeah, it probably is time we went home...

Anyway, The National today reports on the latest number plate auction in Dubai, where a bunch of two-digit plates are expected to fetch Dhs250,000 (about $68,500). That's not the whole story, though - the RTA has published a list of the plates it's got up for grabs this time around (it's by no means their first auction, the boys at the RTA have been making pin money this way for years) and we can see that Dhs 3,000 ($822) gets you a relatively unexciting H33311 while upping the ante a bit to Dhs 40,000 ($10,950) will net you 0 50005 which is a pretty neat plate, all things considered. Start getting serioo with the amount you're prepared to shell out, and you start seeing real results: Dhs 120,000 (almost $33,000) could see you sporting three figure plates, in this case M 202 or N 707.

Although I must confess, neither of those really 'do it' for me.

If you're keen on holding the clean end of the stick, you can go for I 98, L 51 or N 34. Those are the biggies. The full list of plates, just in case you're interested, is linked here. Personally, I think the Dhs40k for 0 50005 is the best deal. Anyway, happy bidding!

Salik Cap Doffed

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The RTA's been and gone and removed the daily cap on its popular Salik road toll, so now if you pass through more than six of the cheery little RFID-enabled gates, you're going to have to pay, baby. This has led to much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the local papers.

There are now three sets of Salik gates in Dubai - two placed on the arterial Sheikh Zayed Road at Safa and Barsha respectively, two on the Maktoum and Garhoud bridges and now two on the main roads to Sharjah at Al Mamzar (Ittihad Road, AKA 'Murder Mile') and the Airport Tunnel (Beirut Street).

There are actually two gates on the Ittihad Road, but they charge as one - as do the two gates on the Sheikh Zayed road IF you pass between them both within one hour (the one hour limitation doesn't apply on the Ittihad Road, so you can pass under one gate, camp overnight and then carry on without incurring an additional charge.).

Nevertheless, if you want to drive from Sharjah to, say, the Jumeirah Beach Residence and back, you're going to get hit for six tolls, currently by a huge coincidence the maximum Dhs24. Now the cap has been removed, any further Salik teasing will result in Dhs4 a time being deducted with a satanic giggle from your Salik account. The alternatives are, practically, the E311 and E611 bypass roads although with some fancy footwork you can get through Qusais and onto the Al Khail Road.

This route is massively congested during rush hours mainly because everybody and his uncle is trying to save Dhs8 each way (they gets you in the road in and they gets you again on the bridge). Caught up in that snarling traffic, cars cutting in, jostling and changing lanes as they cut you up, slumped listlessly over your steering wheel as you wait for the next creep forward and admire the shimmer of the heat on the metal tightly packed all around you, you could be forgiven for wondering what part of 'clear' does the Arabic word salik mean to the RTA.

The RTA has been quick to point out that the change to the cap will only affect some 5% of drivers, but couriers and logistics providers have been most unamused at the scheme. Probably because that 5% of drivers include them - and they will very easily knock up tens of journeys through those gates a day.

You waitses, preciousss, just you waitses for the outcry when they sneaks in a raise to Dhs5 per gate. Oh noes, you might say, they'd never be mad enough to do that!!! I leave you, then, with this parting thought from super-duper tabloid-tastic newspaper 7Days' report on the whole shemoozle:

"The RTA declined to comment when asked by 7DAYS for more information on why the move is being implemented - and whether there are plans to introduce any more Salik charges in the near future."

Sharjah Salik Gates. Dubai's Hundred Million Dollar Baby

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Back in 2007, when Dubai's Salik road toll was first talked about, there were rumblings and mumblings that the Al Ittihad road linking Dubai and Sharjah would be one of the locations for toll gates. The feared gate didn't materialise at the time. In fact, Dubai's Road and Transport Authority was at pains to dampen speculation regarding a 'phase two' which meant, of course, that phase two was just around the corner.

When it came, phase two added a gate to the Sheikh Zayed Road and one to Maktoum Bridge. Both of these, as the original gates, were avoidable, but only by taking a more roundabout route. In fact the RTA, which likes to trumpet its green credentials (even going so far as to award a silver-plated cow's aorta for sustainable transport), has created a system of tolls that lengthens thousands of commuters' journeys each day by taking the most direct route.

And so it is with the new gates, which set the extraordinary precedent of taxing travel between two emirates. You'll be able to make a tax-free Sharjah/Dubai journey by travelling out to the E311 (The Road Formerly Known As The Emirates Road), a significantly longer drive than the Ittihad road. This is predicated on the vast road improvement scheme currently underway on the E311, which upgrades the junctions leading up to the infamous National Paints Roundabout and is intended to remove the bottleneck at National Paints. This is scheduled, we are told, for completion in April. I'll be delighted if it is, but looking at the current state of National Paints I simply can't see it happening.

What will happen if the changes to National Paints aren't ready or, worse, turn out not to work? Will the RTA go ahead, turn on Salik on April 15 (the announced 'go live' date) and create massive, snarling jams on a road already comprehensively choked by the large volume of inter-emirate traffic it carries? The move will certainly put huge pressure on a brand new road network in a known and notorious traffic hotspot. But then it's Sharjah's problem, isn't it? Dubai won't care, it'll be too busy counting the proceeds.

Back when it was launched, Salik was meant to raise Dhs600 million a year in fees according to 'traffic expert' and chairman of the RTA, Mattar Al Tayer. It's consistently whizzed past those targets, raising a stunning Dhs669 million in 2008 and 776 million in 2009. Media reports in 2011 told of Salik being used to underpin securitised loans of Dhs 2.93 billion based on its revenues to 2015. Apart from that, we have seen few up to date figures on Salik revenues - but a four year loan of Dhs2.93 billion would be about consistent with 2009 revenues - a tad over Dhs730 million a year. There's no doubt, whatever its impact on traffic has been, it has been an amazing success financially.

Now, with the Ittihad road carrying some 260,000 vehicles a day, an amazing number but one that comes straight from the horse's mouth, the RTA can look forward to raising a cool million dirhams a day or a hundred million dollars a year. According to the RTA itself, the whole scheme is intended to divert some 1500 vehicles per day to the E311 or E611 Dubai Bypass Road. I can see a lot more than 1,500 people choosing to take the long way round to avoid paying Dhs8 per day. Most people around here would buy and sell you for a Dirham.

That's effectively a hundred million dollar tax on travel to and from Sharjah. Neat.

It also means you're paying Dhs28 straight away to any taxi to take you to Dubai before the meter starts ticking and Dhs36 if you cross any of the 'internal' Salik gates. When I first came here, you could get a cab to Chicago Beach from Sharjah for Dhs25. Ah, me, but those were the days, eh?

NEW SALIK GATES? ARGH!

Image via WikipediaGulf News today reports that a 'study' by the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority has led to them proposing two new Salik gates - one on Al Ittihad Road (AKA 'Murder Mile') and one 'in Al Ghusais' says the paper, being a tad coy about the precise location. We can only presume that 'in Al Ghusais' means 'on Beirut Street', the second major arterial road into Dubai from Sharjah. (although Damascus and 24th Streets get pretty tasty in rush hour, too)


I have to confess to finding GN's story that this proposal comes after extensive studies somewhat hard to swallow. When Salik was first 'on the anvil' to use one of GN's more memorable phrases, any study would surely have included these two routes - you don't need a study to show that Al Ittihad Road is the most congested road in the Northern Emirates and has been such for the 22-odd years I've been knocking around this place. Every morning a snarling snake of metal belches fumes and induces coronaries from the Sharjah border to Dubai, a pattern reversed every evening. In fact, the Ittihad Road traffic is actually a great deal easier these days since we lost so many people to the joys of the downturn and the bursting of the Great Dubai Property Bubble. It's even reasonably clear outside the major rush hour periods.

Similarly, Beirut Street gets pretty lousy in the rush hours but isn't too bad outside them. I've always been fond of Beirut street - it used to be the sandy shortcut I took to get to Dubai and avoid Ittihad.

Salik gates on Ittihad and Beirut will undoubtedly force traffic out to the Emirates Road (E311) and the Dubai Bypass Road (E611) where Sharjah residents will be burning three times the fuel to make the same journey. So much for the RTA's 'green' lalala...

The Emirates Road is already notorious in rush hour. In the morning, traffic backs up to the Sharjah/Dhaid road intersection, in the evenings you're starting to stop at Sonapour, the labour camp area. It's horrible - jostling, lane-swapping traffic, heavy lorries and cars vying for that little advantage, that little selfish creep ahead of the next guy's bumper. The culprit is the infamous National Paints roundabout into Sharjah where the Emirates Road narrows to three lanes from Dubai's rather more generous seven lane stretch and where the side roads introduce a tiny, but telling, clog factor with joining traffic. I do often wonder if being strongly associated with shitty traffic jams has been good, bad or neutral for the National Paints brand...

I have long had fun posting about Salik (some posts passim linked here), which has been a constant joy to me since it was first announced. The RTA, which had 'no immediate plans' to expand the scheme back in 2008 has in fact already expanded the original gates - this will be the second 'expansion' of the scheme. The pretence that Salik is about traffic management is one I find interesting given the obvious and immediate consequences of this next move (to completely stuff up the Emirates Road), especially coming as traffic volumes and congestion have reduced considerably from the heady heights of 2008. Laughably we're told by the RTA that this is because Salik has succeeded, rather than being because something like 20% of the population has nipped off home to avoid being banged up by banks bent on basking in boodle.

When examinig the motivation for expanding Salik, it's perhaps interesting to hark back to the words of 'traffic expert' Mattar Al Tayer, the RTA's Chairman, in 2007 when he predicted that Salik would one day raise revenues of Dhs600 million per year. According to GN today, it's making Dhs800 million, smashing its original target and providing, IMHO, a very real incentive to expand the scheme once again.

This move will also raise the perennial question of quite how much each journey's going to cost us. If one is to travel from Sharjah to Dubai Internet City, for instance, an additional gate would bring the current cost of the trip in tolls alone to Dhs12 (the two gates on the Sheikh Zayed Road charge as one if you pass through them immediately after the Garhoud or Maktoum Bridge gates). Will this be the case, or will we see the 'multi-gate' discount applied to the relief of drivers?

Then again, the whole proposal may just not go ahead. Ittihad Road was an obvious target for phase one of Salik and was passed over for some reason. We can only wait and see what happens this time...

Information Overload

Image by Getty Images via @daylife
You could perhaps feel sorry for Dubai's RTA (Road and Transport Authority) faced as it is (and doubtless many other such authorities around the world) with having bought huge, wildly expensive traffic information screens that flash up bitty messages using LED technology. Given the relatively low resolution of the screens, they are only able to show a couple of lines of text - although they are bilingual, which is a good thing.


Someone at the RTA has the unenviable task of thinking up messages to post on the things and there have been signs recently of a certain tendency to surreal, Situationist-like sloganeering. The most recent, giving way yesterday and today to an Arabic only greeting for Sheikh Khalifa (who has just returned to the UAE following medical treatment), was 'SCHOOLS WITHOUT ACCIDENTS'.


That one's stayed with me. What could it mean?

Dubai Vehicle Registration And The National ID Card. A Farce

Image via Wikipedia

Popped off to get the car registered, a tad late admittedly. Was just girding the old loins to do it when I was amazed to get a text from the RTA telling me I was in danger of blowing it and to get my butt online to register or go to a Shamil Centre. It's wrong of me to be so delighted when stuff like this happens, I know.

The Emarat Shamil station was amazingly fast, efficient and even friendly (up to a point) and the whole thing took just over 20 minutes.  How things have been transformed since the days of yore, when vehicle registration was at least a half day marathon often involving having to travel to other emirates to pay fines, multiple procedures, inexplicable counters with grunting staff and constant, shuffling queues!

It was almost all done, when the grumpy bloke behind the counter (the only grumpy bloke around, I have to say) says "Bassbort."

A passport is not, of course, a requirement that is outlined in the RTA's online vehicle registration guidelines. But I'm old enough to know that you need your passport for anything official, semi-official, quasi-official or where a bureaucrat is involved (for instance, the bank) or where you can see no conceivable need for a passport.

I thought I'd try my luck. "I have my ID card. Here."

Incredibly, the response was "Not this. Not need this. Want bassbort."

"But this is the National ID card. It has all of my information. My biometrics. It confirms me."

"Need bassbort."

"Why?"

"It has information. Visa expiry and sponsor name."

And so I had to get my bassbort out for him and pocket my, now confirmed as totally useless, national ID card, the document that, as you'll recall, was the most critical thing that you absolutely, certainly needed for vehicle registration as of last week.

I wonder if you can play tiddleywinks with them?

PS: There's a new rule whereby you have to have a little triangular warning thingy in your car. The Emarat stations sell 'em for Dhs30. 

Do We Treat Our Taxi Drivers Badly? Hell, Yes!

Image by Qiao-Da-Ye賽門譙大爺 via Flickr

I have frequently posted in the past about my regular cabbie Mr. G and the iniquitous conditions that cabbies work under in the UAE since private cabs were banned and replaced by the taxi companies. These companies have been treating cabbies effectively like indentured labour, fining them huge amounts and saddling them with all sorts of charges and 'extras' that most people out here expect as part of their conditions of employment.

Gulf News has reported on one group of cabbies who have filed a complaint against their employer, oddly enough going as far as to name the company. The report is doubly surprising given the reaction of the company when GN contacted them for comment.

The drivers are complaining that their salary, a nominal Dhs300, isn't actually paid as they're employed on commission and are made to pay over Dhs3,000 for their visa, Dhs 1,000 for their uniform (must be designer brand stuff) and Dhs 26 a day for 'operational costs'. If they don't make a minimum of Dhs 1,200 a day, they're fined Dhs 200. They're complaining that they have to work 12 hours a day and beyond to keep their heads above water.

Given that our safety is in their hands, 12 hour shifts seems dangerous - and I know that Sharjah cabbie Mr G not unusually works 16 hour shifts, 365 days a year.

The company's response to Gulf News was brilliant.

"They work 12 hours, seven days a week because we consider them partners and not employees," Metro's GM told GN, going on to confirm that drivers must also pay for operational costs, which include insurance, plate registration, car cost, car maintenance and for all needed expenses.

The taxi companies are, apparently, 'working on getting rid of signing the labour contract'. Now there's a solution!.

For a company charged with egregious behaviour, unfair practices and treating its staff appallingly to respond with 'Hell, yes!' is pure genius.

We're re-writing the rulebook of PR by the day, folks... By the day...

Win a Cow's Aorta! Now Extended!

Image via Wikipedia

The Roads and Traffic Authority of Dubai has extended the deadline for entries to the Dubai Sustainable Transport Award. It would appear that not enough people want to win a silver-plated segment from a cow's aorta.

Perhaps interestingly, snuck in the very bottom of the press release issued by the RTA announcing the extension, there are two subsidiary awards this year, as well as the four key awards (I'm not going to list them, if you're interested more info is here).

The second subsidiary award is for 'Best Media Coverage'. According to the RTA, the award "relates to the media coverage of events, activities and news of the Award. This Award is designed for the government, semi-government and private media organizations."

So you get an award for covering the awards. Neat. I can't wait to see which journalist will step up to receive an award for the most slavish, extensive, praise-laden and blindly approving piece of witless, saccharine hagiography.

Oh, sorry. I meant 'most incisive and independent evaluation of the awards, their objectives and success in meeting those targets'.

It just came out wrong.

RTA Renews Licenses Online

Image via Wikipedia

"Hello, RTA."
"Hi. I need to renew my driving license. What documents will you require?"
"You can go to the nearest centre, yours is at Co-Op opposite Safa Park, Sir. You'll need the old license, a passport copy, Dhs 100 fees and an eye test. For the eye test, you need to visit an optician and you will require your passport and a photograph of yourself."
"And that's it?"
"Yes, sir!"

Wow!

How much has changed around here? When I originally got the license (way back when, you don't need to know, right?) it had taken a major internationally co-ordinated effort, the resources of three small Latin American countries and the best part of a whole morning hanging around in hopeless queues, processing paperwork and being videoed in large empty rooms filled with smiling policemen - and that was with the efforts of my powerful sponsor's mandoub.

So off I toddled. I got the eye test from a wiry thin Syrian optician whose hacking cough shook his gaunt frame every two seconds.

"Cover your eye. Read the letters."
"E O N F V W"
"Okay, now cover other eye. Read letters."
(puzzled) "Errm. E O N F V W"
Okay. You pass. Dhs 25.

I went upstairs to the RTA centre and proudly handed over my old license, my passport copy, my eye test (with stamped photo stapled to it to prove I wasn't using Gary Gilmore's eyes) and my Dhs 100.

The nice girl tapped on a keyboard and then smiled pityingly at me.

"You must pay twifty-ten Dirhams."
"Whaaat?"
"Yes," she smiled beatifically. "Your traffic fines. Of course you must pay these."

Of course. All the documents I'd need except one omitted vital element. Luckily, the Co-Op is festooned in ATM's, so one cash scoop and about ten minutes later, I was photographed and in possession of my new license - but short twifty-ten Dirhams.

Now Gulf News tells us that the RTA is to introduce an online renewal service. All you have to do is get the eye-test and apply online by attaching a photo and the fee. The optician can send your eye test direct to the RTA, apparently. And your license gets posted to you in four days.

How will they match the applications with the eye tests without losing them or breaking them? How will they handle the payment of fines given they have no e-payment portal worth a hoot? How will they handle licenses 'lost in the post'? We have yet to find out.

But to be honest, given that the Salik portal still couldn't process online payments by Visa last time I tried (and screwed up the time before that), I'd actually rather go the Co-Op route and get a license in my hands in ten minutes more than it takes to go anyway for the eye test - and get a lovely smile into the bargain.

Funny, isn't it, that the 'old fashioned' physical process is not only safer and more reliable than the online one but also faster. Rather turns one's preconceptions about the transactional Internet on their head...

Dubai Sharjah Block Offical

The RTA has finally officially owned up to blocking the rush hour short cut through the desert between Sharjah and Dubai in today's Emarat Al Youm, which carries a story on the blocks.

Many of you will by now know this as 'the snicket' having read about it here. Oh! And here and here and here, too! Let alone here, here or here! In fact, I realise that I've been writing about the snicket since here back in May 2007!

Well, now they've apparently told Emarat Al Youm that they've blocked the desert because of the large volume of traffic that used the snicket. I must have missed those large volumes clogging up the roads because I never once saw the snicket causing a jam or any other disruption to the traffic until they started blocking it - apart from some tailbacks caused by some ill-considered temporary speedbumps that had been placed before the roadworks on the Dubai side which are now, in any case, complete.

According to the official quoted by EAY, they've done it for our own safety.

That's interesting, because the only explanation I had heard for the move before was some flibble about buried electrical cables.

I didn't see a single accident on the snicket until I started seeing cars that had smashed into the concrete blocks they had put just over the other side of sandy hillocks or that had torn off bumpers or caused other damage trying to get through the blocks.

But it's nice to know we're safer now, anyway...

Jokers

As Dubai's "integrated response" to the "challenges of the traffic issue" kicks in, we are seeing increased regulation of our lives on the roads. It's likely that nowhere else in the world are motorists subjected to such regular doses of radar - the fixed cameras are everywhere and the mobile ones are where the fixed ones aren't.

We're being charged to use some roads, thereby 'encouraging' us to use others. Seemingly random roadworks dot the city, adding extra excitement to the congestion. We're not allowed to share our cars unless we have registered to do so. Dubai trarn-sport has replaced the private sector cabbie solution with a modern integrated trarn-sport solution and now we can't get cabs when we need them - increasingly a problem at certain times, even if they're pre-booked through the call centre. Those cabs are increasingly expensive: including a Dhs20 surcharge to go to Sharjah.

They're also replacing Dubai's traditional (and much loved) abra water taxis with a fleet of modern, air-conditioned customer-centric boats that nobody seems to want.

I reckon working for the RTA must be tough. The poor guys must rank below investment advisors on the unpopular job chart. You can just see the kitchen at the party.

"I'm an interior design consultant. What do you do?"
"Oh, you know, import/export kind of stuff!"
"Alan? Why did you say that? You work for the RTA, darling!"
"Shhh!"

They do have my sympathy. Altogether now? Aaahhh.

Which is probably why I am amused by RTA cars negotiating the sandy snicket that lies between Sharjah and Dubai of a morning. Given that their job is to deal with the problem, it seems unfair that they're not eating their own dog-food.

But insult was added to injury the other day when an RTA car sped past me pulling upward of 120kph on the infamously mobile-radar infested Academic City Road. Really. An insane 80kph speed limit applies on this stretch of tw0-lane each way desert blacktop and the boys in green are such a very regular occurence than nobody dares break the limit there anymore. We just go quietly insane, crawling through the empty desert at a snail's pace. Unless we work for the RTA, in which case we're obviously immune.

And then this morning I found myself on another 80kph road, this time in Sharjah, as another joker in an RTA vehicle slammed past me pulling at least 120 klicks.

And, dear reader, for one awful, vengeful moment, I have to confess my heart was not filled with love towards our 'traffic expert' colleagues. I am, I know, a bad person.

Mobile

So now you can pay for your Salik using your mobile. Whoopee.

I don't need that service, thanks to the Dubai e-government payment portal, which crashed last time I tried to pay my Salik, a couple of months ago. It blew out the transaction with an error message. I tried again, same result. I thought I'd give it a go at 'third time lucky' but it just came back again with a failure and error message.

Next day I had Dhs750 of Salik credit. The RTA blamed the e-government payment portal, the e-government people blamed Salik. Neither would contemplate (against the TOS, I believe, of Visa) a refund of the erroneously credited Dhs500. I sent email after email to the e-Pay people. Nada.

I also raised a complaint to HSBC Visa, who have been brilliantly silent on the matter since.

I remain a Salik millionaire. But I shudder to think what financial carnage could be achieved by the combination of RTA, Etisalat, e-Pay and HSBC, particularly bearing in mind that Etisalat will only discuss a billing problem once the bill has been settled and that the other three won't discuss a problem at all.

A confederacy of dunces indeed...

Traffic

If you've got a 4WD, there's a sandy snicket between Sharjah and Dubai that lets you miss all that nasty, snarled up traffic in the mornings; the roadworks, the congestion, the Salik gates and all that other 'orrible commute to work unpleasantness that are part of the miserable day for thousands of people.

I've been waiting to snap one of these boys for a while, but I got 'im this morning.

It's bad isn't it, when even the 'solution' has to avoid the 'problem'?

(Note for puzzled non-UAE residents: the logo on the car belongs to Dubai's traffic regulator, the RTA...)

Kipp

I do agree wholeheartedly with Kipp's slightly grumbly blogpost about the RTA's adoption of social media.

If they're really getting hardcore about online media, they'd do well to start reading some of the reaction from 'customers' on the UAE's blogs. Although I suspect that when it comes to true 'customer feedback', we're looking less like joining a conversation and more like sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting lalalalalala until all the naughty people go away...

And this at a time when the RTA's Salik website still, a year after the launch of the toll, isn't fully functional and doesn't actually provide a fully transactional service.

A Facebook page doesn't make you cool - but it certainly can make you look like an organisation that doesn't get the dynamics and potential of the Internet but which is ticking the 'things we feel we should look like we're doing' boxes...

Pooling

Do go to the RTA's new Sharekni website and have a giggle.

Yes! Thanks to the brilliance of the RTA, you can now register to share your car with other people! Other people? Yes! Other people!

For those wondering what on earth is going on about this carpooling business, it was illegal to share your car with other people in the UAE because of the prevalence of illegal taxis - ie people sharing their cars for money. As I've pointed out in the past, if the taxis were a little nicer, neater, more knowledgeable about destinations and carried passengers at a reasonable market rate, the demand for 'illegal' taxis would be practically non-existent.

However, the issue was, apparently, that people were running 'illegal taxis', hence the move to make all car-sharing technically illegal. I'm really not sure that the level of 'illegal sharing' was such a safety threat, or revenue threat to the RTA, but there we go. The imposition of the law into this situation may seem a little draconian: others might have run an awareness campaign about the dangers of car sharing, re-evaluated the taxi service to make it more competitive or perhaps even just put up with a little natural attrition for the taxi company as those less well off shared their cars.

Having imposed the move as law, this obviously poses some problems, such as 'If I want to give my friend/colleague/neighbour/ a lift to work/the club/the beach then I damn well will'. And nobody would be particularly keen to live in an environment so mad as to actually seriously enforce such a piece of legislation. Would they?

The RTA's new solution to the issue, the 'Sharekni' service, attempts to allow drivers to register, stipulate the type of passengers they're willing to share with, the days they're happy to be 'driver' on etc - and then lets them log up to four passengers together. The site also supports passengers looking for a driver. The site then issues a 'permission' document that will satisfy even the most ardent police officer when you're stopped to see who the four strange people in your car are.

As Kipp points out, the Sharekni car pooling website isn't exactly a Web 2.0 marvel. Rather than making it all fun and social, the site is more like a government form filling exercise. The 'quick search' failed to find anything I tried and the registration link failed, the form failed and pretty much everything else I tried to do failed, too. I gave up in the end.

Although I'm sure they'll fix the site in time, the whole idea really does still make my mind boggle. To try and legislate, and enforce that legislation, against people having other people in their cars is surely an utterly pointless exercise. To offer them the chance to register for the chance to share their car with strangers for no incentive other than a 'permissible' sharing of the cost of petrol ("Cash exchange is not allowed between the passengers and the car owner; however the car owner can be compensated by paying the gas price.")?

I somehow don't think it's going to be wow of the century... but then I'm just cynical and overdue leave, so I might simply be wrong...

Stations

We should be hearing from the RTA soon, presumably once it's finished clapping itself on the back on the successful construction of an interchange, as to the naming of those 23 sponsored railway stations as well as the names of the first two Dubai Metro lines. Yes, the Dubai Metro Naming Rights programme, if the RTA's own documents are to be believed, is about to close its first phase, with the RTA datelining July 15th as the end of the month-long negotiation process with the first tranche of companies that submitted 'Expressions of Interest' or EOIs.

It'll be interesting to see how many of those 250 companies that the RTA claims expressed an interest will come through with the minimum 10 year commitment to Dhs6 million per year (30% up front, if you don't mind!) for the right to have people say they're going to take a train to their brand.

The RTA makes a number of stipulations for companies applying. They must be a company or brand, not a personal/family name, which is interesting if you're Al Futtaim or Al Ghurair or any of Dubai's other major family companies. They must have a presence in the UAE . They have to be financially stable (!) and have no history of fraudulent and/or unethical behaviour (One can only speculate as to what criteria they're going to apply there!) and must not be promoting fags, booze, porn or gambling. So Playboy Junction isn't going to happen.

Additionally, it is 'desirable' that companies have a 'commitment to Dubai', have a CSR policy in place or in process, should ideally 'fit' with the location and, if international, should be a Fortune 1000 company and be a 'multi-cultural organisation'.

The ham-fisted attempt above to try and define the 'right sort of company' that Dubai would want splashed all over its Metro system is one of many interesting areas to the whole scheme. We wouldn't want anybody 'wrong' to be splurged all over the city, now would we?

I can't wait for the list of applicants. We can only hope there has been no delay in finding 23 of the 'right sort of companies' out of that avalanche of 250 expressions of interest. I suppose we'll know soon enough when we start to see the 'RTA struggles under five billion applications, extends deadline' releases. Or, alternatively, when we see a list of our new landmarks to be.

Dummy

It stands out among the many fine examples of the Worst Advertising In The World to be enjoyed on Dubai’s radio stations, in particular Dubai ‘News Talk Sport’ Eye, where I am occasionally forced to turn off the radio to avoid it. It certainly takes my personal nomination for the Year’s Worst Radio Ad. It’s the RTA ‘dummy’ ad. Remember? It’s the dialogue in a car between AUB American accent and the robotic voice supposed to sound like a crash test dummy... it goes something like this:

“Hey dummy, watch out for that reticulated marmoset!”
“It’s fine.”
“Hey dummy, watch out for the syllogistical conclusion!”
“It’s fine.”
“Hey dummy, watch out for the red light!”
CRASH
“Oh no! Its fine, it's fine, it's fine! Now that’s a whole lot of fines!”
VO: “He’s a dummy but you’re not....”

Who wrote that? What type of dim-witted, addle-pated, misbegotten son of a retarded jack-ass actually wrote that as a creative execution designed to communicate a message? And what message was it supposed to get across in the first place? Worse, what idiot of an account director didn’t strangle the creative at birth? And what kind of client would actually approve that as an awareness campaign ad?

Oh. The RTA. I understand everything now.

Look, the whole point of communication in the modern world is that consumers are less and less likely to buy this kind of advertising. We’re in the Internet age – as consumers, we’re in the driving seat. We know what we want and when we want it. Like now. People are more cynical than ever before: we know that eating your product or drinking your drink won’t make us sexually attractive to hordes of lascivious Lolitas. We’re more likely to know about the calorific content of it and the child labour being used to produce it than any other generation before us. We’re not, in short, idiots.

Similarly, I think we can all take it for granted that we know that driving dangerously is a bad thing. We, residents, probably all know that a new points system has been introduced to punish bad driving. I think the vast majority of us think that, fairly and evenly implemented, that this is a very good idea indeed. But I would suspect that few of us know much more than that – how many points before you lose your license, how points are accumulated, how long they remain on your license. I, for one, am unclear on the actual rules. And this stupid advertisement does nothing to make it any clearer for me. It just annoys me.

I don’t want the creative execution – particularly not when it’s so awfully, irredeemably piss poor, but in any case not when it’s taking the place of clear, straightforward communication of the facts that consumers actually do want.

This is the age of the communicator – an age when it has never been more important to say what you want clearly, succinctly and in a timely fashion. There are powerful tools that let you do that, not least of which are the Internet and the ‘social media’ that are driving such a rapid pace of change in human behaviour right now.

All I want from that 30 seconds of airtime is to know what’s going to affect me and how – and ideally a link to a website where I can find out more information if I want to. That's what an awareness campaign IS in today's world.

By the way, do have a look at the RTA website and see if you can find any information about the blasted points system that they're spending good money 'building awareness' of, but which they can't be bothered to highlight on their website.

And just in case the clots behind the Dubai Water and Electricity advertisement are laughing at the RTA, you lot are even worse. I really don’t need some soapy-voiced nerd talking over a background of whiny, soppy faux-pastoral muzak telling me that there’s a team of people working to bring me ‘enabling’ power. I think I can work that out for myself, you dimwits.

There. That’s much better, thank you!

Trucked

The scenes outside our local ADNOC have started to become apocalyptic: a line of 45 buses stretches out onto the sand-roads behind the petrol station, blocking access to our house from the main road: the line of trucks on the other side stretches out just as far, curling into a strange mandala of decorated, jangling, garishly painted flat-backs. We’re looking at well over 100 vehicles stacked up for the final approach to cheap diesel: Dhs10 per gallon less than Dubai’s filling stations. For a lorry with a 100 gallon tank, that’s a lot of Mars Bars. Every ADNOC’s the same - a line of waiting diesel consumers stretches around the back, down the road - any which way they can, really!

Lugubrious taxi driver Mr G says it’s because Dubai won’t buy refined product from Abu Dhabi and insists on importing the stuff. Interesting, the thought that this could all be down to a sort of family squabble.

Whatever the reason (and we have been rather short of investigative insight from our trusted ‘analogue’ media sources on that one, so Mr. G.’s speculative take is the best thing I’ve heard), the insane queues continue. It must be awful driving one of those orange tankers queued up outside Dubai Shitty City: ten hours to dump your load and then another five hours to fill up with enough diesel to get through the next day.

Paying Salik would be a relief for them: in fact, I could afford to let both queues cross Salik at my expense and still have credit left over, thanks to the muddled administration of the toll that likes to say ‘It’s not our fault our system doesn’t work’...

Silence from the RTA continues. Gulf News' report on Salik's failings today just makes me feel even better about my chances of recovering the money they took as a result of their screw-up.

GnnnnnNNNNN!

Cleared

Salik is a joy to the hearts of many Dubai residents. There are few things that make me happier than passing under that smashing RFID-tabulous gate and hearing the sound of another four dirhams going 'ching' into the giant cash register that is Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority, or RTA. It makes me happy.

Recently I started to get text messages telling me that my Salik balance was low. And then I realised that I really had to do something about it: I was in danger of triggering... gasp... violations. So I went online to try and pay.

The RTA website is a bit of a mess, if I'm honest. It hasn't really been updated since they launched the whole Salik scheme and much of its functionality remains 'under construction'. Online payment doesn't work if you use Firefox, either - only IE is supported. Which is a little Victorian if you ask me.

So I loaded (with a shudder) Explorer and got on with making my payment. It's enabled through the Dubai e-Government 'Epay' site and the mechanism is a little, well, Victorian. Worse, my attempt to pay 'em Dhs 250 (good for a while, about 62 'chings') bombed out: the transaction failed. I tried again, keying my card details in very, very carefully. Failed again. And then I noticed an error message:

“Server was unable to process request. ---> uspEPayResponseUpd: OKCannot insert the value NULL into column 'dtUpdTime', table 'dbDTS.dbo.tbEPayTrxn'; column does not allow nulls. UPDATE fails.”

This didn't look good. I left it a while and tried again, same error message. Three attempts, three failed transactions. I called 'em, but they won't do credit card transactions over the 'phone, which struck me as a little, well, Victorian.

You know what's coming next, don't you? I logged on to the Salik website next day to see how much trouble I was in with those potential violations and... ta da!!!! I've got Dhs750 credit on my Salik tag.

The RTA call center won't process a refund because it's not their policy and anyway it's epay I have to talk to and not them and is there anything else I can do to help you?

The Dubai government helpline ('Dial one to stick knives in your head, dial two to eat lightbulbs, dial three to speak to a human being and solve your problem. Thank you for dialling three. Sorry, nobody's answering that line. Dial one...') says I should go to the RTA because they took my money. Great.

Having lost the plot with both, both have agreed to 'escalate' the complaint to 'the concerned department'. This has been followed by a long silence, but I'm not giving up. Even if it takes me as long as 187 crossings of Salik to sort it out...