New award for Route 2020 in Dubai

The Dubai Award for Sustainable Transport (DAST) recognises a project that combines transport and sustainable development in the emirate of Dubai. This year, the Route 2020 metro extension to the World Expo was honoured with the Dubai Sustainability Consultant Award at DAST 2022.

A fast-developing automatic metro

This 15km extension enabled 8,203 million passengers to reach the Expo from 1 October 2021 to 31 March 2022, more than a third of the 24,102,967 million visitors. It was built from 2016 to 2021 as an extension of the Dubai Metro’s Red Line, which opened in 2009.

The backbone of our client’s metro network, the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority (RTA), this line is also the longest automatic metro line on iron track in operation in the world today with a total of 52.1km.

We are particularly honoured to receive this award with our partner Parsons. Route 2020 is a project that will go down in SYSTRA’s history as one of the most ambitious challenges in the field of automatic metro and sustainable transport infrastructure, with stations certified for their environmental performance. With the support of our expertise, RTA has acquired one of the most advanced, modern, and sustainable metros in the world, which will contribute to the Emirate’s ecological transition.

Alister White, project manager, SYSTRA Dubai

Sustainability in action

The Dubai RTA has placed the sustainable and responsible nature of the Route 2020 project at the forefront. It aims to reduce car traffic and congestion by around 15 to 20% in the new areas served, which will become the emirate’s new residential and business districts after Expo 2020. This collective mobility offer makes it possible to estimate that 120,000 tonnes of carbon emissions will be avoided by 2025.

In operation, each train is equipped with an electric braking system to recover kinetic energy and reduce particulate emissions, as well as low-energy LED lighting. In stations, the RTA has also deployed a cooling system instead of air conditioning, to reduce the temperature in stations by 8-10 degrees while reducing energy consumption by 10-15%. This is in addition to the so-called ‘environmental monitoring’ system deployed throughout the project, to analyse the air quality of each station in real time.

The seven new stations have been certified LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) for their low energy and water consumption and the use of recycled materials. Our experts worked with our counterparts at Parsons to achieve these certifications, which are still rare in the transport industry.

Christelle Chichignoud, Group Sustainability Director

Key features – extension of Route 2020 of the Dubai Metro

• Extension length: 15km
• Total Red Line length: 52.1km
• 7 stations

• Distance covered by the metro during the Expo: 5,717,674km
• Interval between each train: 2.30 minutes
• Daily ridership: 353,244 passengers