Dubai's new traffic plan: Parents urge school bus operators to reduce fees, commute times

Dubai has launched a new plan to improve traffic flow in the emirate. Among the steps that will be taken to ease traffic is a plan to develop a policy to encourage students to use school transport, “which will help improve traffic flow around schools by 13 per cent”.

According to UAE resident Farah Shah, the impact of schools on traffic is evident when there is a break. “When schools are on break, traffic tends to be much lighter,” she said. “This suggests that a considerable portion of traffic stems from parents driving their kids to school. To address this, we should encourage parents to utilise school buses. One way to do this is by supporting school bus companies to reduce their costs and actively promoting the benefits of using school buses to parents.”

However, some parents say would much rather opt for the school run themselves rather than using the school bus. High costs and long commute times are some of the top reasons.

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Working mother Zeina Haddad spends two hours of her day on the road dropping her children and picking them up from school. She plans her entire day around it and even skips her lunch break. However, she is not willing to sign them up for a school bus service.

“Firstly, the children spend more than an hour in the bus every day, which is a big waste of time and exhausting for them,” she said. “Also, I have two children. For each, I will have to pay a little over Dh10,000 per year for the school bus service. This is a large sum, which is on top of their school fees and other activity fees.”

“Moreover, as a working mother, life sometimes gets busy and chaotic,” she said. “The drive to and from school gives us time to catch up. We talk about our day and share what we did. So I really enjoy doing it, even if it means sacrificing several things.”

It is not clear when the traffic flow plan — which was approved by the Executive Council on Wednesday — will be put into place. However, it will require concerted efforts from authorities and school bus operators to encourage more parents to make the switch to use school buses.

Afterschool activities

For the first few years of her daughter’s school life, Mini Ilyas used the bus service. “At the time, we were in between cars and I had a really young baby,” she recalled. “So the bus service was very helpful. Yes, it took very long for my daughter to get home and was unnecessarily expensive but she really enjoyed the ride with her friends.”

A few years later, when both her children began going to school, she started doing the school run. “It has been almost 10 years now and we continue to use our own transport,” she said. “With both my kids in high school doing various after school activities, their pick up times vary. I feel like these factors are not considered when the school bus system is designed.”

Much like her, Simi’s children used to take the bus until three years ago. “After Covid, when my children went back to school, they were spending 1.5 hours on the bus,” she said. “I complained, reasoned and tried many ways of communicating that this was unacceptable but the bus company was not ready to listen to me.”

That is when she decided to reach out to some other parents on the same street. “We spoke to each other and realised that we could carpool and alternate pick-ups and drop offs between us,” she said. “We are three sets of parents and we ferry six children up and down. It saves us money and time.”

Using the bus

For Zeina, a bus service would be feasible only if it is economical and can get her children home quickly. “Right now, by afternoon I work out of a place that is close to the school so I don’t get stuck in traffic,” she said. “I skip lunchbreak and eat something in the car. So if I get bus service for a good rate and my children are not in the bust for more than an hour, I would definitely go for it. Also, I think buses should offer discounts to parents with more than one child.”

Mini said that she would gladly pick the school bus option if they had provisions to transport her children back after their after-school activities. "Most bus services will have a disclaimer that if students are staying back in school for activities, they must organise their transportation after that," she said. "If I have a bus service that will cater to my children irrespective of their pick up times, I would happily pay for it."

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