Palm Monorail

The Palm Monorail is a monorail line on the Palm Jumeirah island in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It is operated by the UK-based Serco. The monorail connects the Palm Jumeirah to the mainland, with a planned further extension to the Red Line of the Dubai Metro.^[2] The line opened on 30 April 2009 as the Palm Jumeirah Monorail.^[3] It is the first monorail in the Middle East.^[4]

Palm Monorail Dubai
The Monorail testing in February 2009
Overview
Locale	Dubai
Transit type	straddle-beam monorail
Number of lines	1
Number of stations	4 open, 1 under redevelopment, 1 planned
Daily ridership	~40,000 (capacity), under contemporary interval 23,000. Current ridership much lower.
Website	www.palmmonorail.com
Operation
Began operation	30 April 2009
Operator(s)	Serco
Number of vehicles	4 (2009)[1] (only two visually seen in July 2014)
Technical
System length	5.45 kilometres (3 mi)[2]
Average speed	35 km/h (22 mph)
Top speed	70 km/h (43 mph)
System map Legend Atlantis Aquaventure The Pointe Nakheel Mall Al Ittihad Park Gateway  T1  Dubai Internet City  M1  This diagram: view talk edit

Plan Overview Of Palm Monorail Route

The trains are driverless, with attendants for any emergency situations.^[1] It currently runs from Gateway Station to Atlantis Aquaventure and stops at the Al Ittihad Park Station and Nakheel Mall station.

History

Construction began on the 5.45-kilometre (3.39 mi) monorail line in March 2006,^[2] under the supervision of Marubeni Corporation, with the monorail track completed in July 2008 and vehicle testing beginning in November 2008. Originally planned to open by December 2008,^[5] the opening was delayed to 30 April 2009.^[2][5] In 2010, day-to-day operations were taken over by the British company Serco.^[6]

The project budget is US$400 million, with an additional US$190M set aside for a 2-kilometre (1.2 mi) future extension to the Dubai Metro,^[7] while other sources state a budget of US$1.1 billion.^[8] A journey on the monorail costs Dhs20 one-way, 30 return.

The Al Ittihad Park station, originally intended to serve the cancelled Trump International Hotel and Tower development, was opened on 3 July 2017.^[9] Nakheel Mall station opened on 28 November 2019.^[10]

Technology

The Palm Monorail uses Hitachi Monorail straddle-type technology. The electro-mechanical works are carried out by ETA-Dubai in joint venture with Hitachi-Japan. Omron Electronics Company will provide the train equipment electronic system which will work by using the smart card technique.^[11]

Ridership

Each carriage has 70 seats and can accommodate 232 standing passengers, for a total of 302 people.^[11]

The line has a theoretical capacity of 40,000 passengers per day, with trains running every few minutes during peak hours and every 15 to 20 minutes during off-peak hours.^[2][4] However, actual ridership averaged around 600 passengers per day during the first week,^[12] and the monorail ran "virtually empty".^[13] As of July 2017^[update], the line runs every 11 minutes and averages 3,000 passengers per day.^[9]

Stations

• Atlantis Aquaventure station — Atlantis, The Palm
• The Pointe station^[14] closed from July 2023 for a redevelopment project.^[15]
• Nakheel Mall station
• Al Ittihad Park station — formerly Trump Plaza and Village Center Station
• Palm Gateway station — Gateway Towers, connection to Dubai Tram at Palm Jumeirah station (out-of-station interchange)

Palm Gateway station has more than 1,600 parking spaces available.^[16]

Planned extension

• Red Line — intended connection to Dubai Metro.^[14] Meanwhile Dubai Internet City is the nearest metro station on the Dubai Metro Red Line.

Gallery

• 
  Monorail station in Nakheel mall
• 
  Inside the monorail train