Dubai aims 56% of its taxi fleet to be environment-friendly by 2023

Dubai aims to make 56% of its total taxi fleet environmentally friendly by 2023. Also, Dubai plans to make 5% of its taxi fleet self-driving by 2023, reports Arabian Business.

The publication also said that the director-general of the RTA has said that the organisation is committed to employing artificial intelligence and smart systems in Dubai's taxi sector.

Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) signed a deal with General Motors backed Cruise in April 2021. Under this, the Dubai RTA planned to increase the number of self-driving taxis to 4,000 by 2030. The environment-friendly vehicles would include battery electric vehicles as taxis in the middle east city.

Dubai has been emphasising on sustainable mobility solutions in the city for quite a long time. The latest announcement comes in the same line.

Mattar Mohammed Al Tayer, director-general, chairman of the board of executive directors of the RTA said that the city is aiming to offer the passengers a unique experience in the taxi industry. "We aim to provide mobility services featuring diverse options in terms of the level of comfort and care in modern taxis, be it limo service, airport taxi, ladies taxi, family taxi etc," he said.

He also said that the process requires increasing the fleet of taxis and limos to match the rapid growth seen by the emirate and step up the integration of transportation means.

The implementation of self-driving vehicles for taxi services are taking place in different cities across the world. Self-driving technology providers like Cruise, Waymo are taking the lead in this strategy. While several established conventional automakers are working on self-driving technology, mobility startups too are working on the same technology.

The city is expected to reveal an outline of the strategy to reach sustainable mobility during the upcoming Expo 2020 scheduled in October 2021.