Elon Musk's Dubai Loop could help traffic issues but needs to avoid Las Vegas project pitfalls, say experts

Ambitious proposals from Elon Musk for an underground road system in Dubai could make a positive difference to traffic in the city, but it needs to be more than a reproduction of the loop in Las Vegas, transport experts have said.

A joint initiative with Mr Musk’s The Boring Company, Dubai Loop is the latest headline-grabbing initiative to shake up the UAE’s transport network. It was announced weeks after plans for a high-speed rail line between Abu Dhabi and Dubai were announced.

As reported in The National, Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority and TBC today unveiled the early development of a 17km Dubai Loop with 11 stations and capacity of 20,000 passengers an hour.

The proposal echoes the underground Las Vegas Convention Centre Loop, which has five stations – with plans for more than 100 – and involves electric cars from Mr Musk's Tesla company.

Omar Al Olama, Minister of State for AI, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications, said the scheme would cover Dubai’s most densely populated areas and allow users to go “from point to point in a seamless manner”. While limited details have been released, Mr Al Olama indicated that passengers would travel in “pods”.

Elon Musk and Tesla to bring underground road network to Dubai

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Thomas Edelmann, founder and managing director of Road Safety UAE, said that, if the initial phase was similar to the Las Vegas Loop, it would also involve Teslas. In Las Vegas these currently have drivers but could run autonomously. He added that the project has the potential to make a difference to road safety and the level of traffic here in the UAE.

“Of course, autonomous connected car transportation offers road safety advantages,” he said. “It is fair to assume that the driver will be perfectly trained to perform in this new flagship development.

“Media reports about the Las Vegas system mention fire suppression systems, emergency protocols for stranded vehicles and more. Looking at the current challenges of the road infrastructure, congestion on arterial routes is a daily occurrence, with the related road safety issues. How is the new flagship project going to ease the traffic load there?”

Mr Edelmann said that it was likely that the Dubai authorities would assess user interest, considering issues such as safety concerns, what areas people wanted to be connected, and how much they were prepared to pay.

“Typically, a series of researches are conducted to evaluate these and more dimensions of customer perception,” he said. “Overall, the approach of the authorities must be applauded, as they are continuously expanding the road network with conservative approaches like building new and better roads, and also trying new and creative approaches.”

Transporting new ideas

Such approaches included, he said, the recently announced Super Block initiative, which aims to make neighbourhoods such as Dubai’s Al Karama more pedestrian friendly by becoming car-free, and extensions to the Etihad Rail project. These include the recent announcement of a 350kph line between Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

Prof Marcus Enoch, professor in transport strategy at Loughborough University in the UK, said there were several other examples of public transport systems that involved small pod-like vehicles of the kind that may be seen in Dubai Loop – albeit above ground in these cases.

An example is the Morgantown Personal Rapid Transit in West Virginia, which has small computer-controlled pods that run on rubber tyres in tracks and stop at stations selected by passengers. Associated with West Virginia University, whose various campuses it connects, it was seen as groundbreaking when it opened in 1975.

“They are quite small [pods] with maybe eight people,” Prof Enoch said. Developing projects underground is, he said, much more expensive than creating above-ground transport systems. Cost reasons may explain why much of the existing Dubai Metro system runs above rather than below ground.

“If you think about all the buildings and infrastructure underground, I don’t know how tidily they’ve built the city.

“London is a nightmare to build under because there’s so much stuff and people don’t know where it is. They have to go very, very deep in London to avoid [existing structures]. There are very tall buildings in Dubai that must have very deep foundations, and all the utilities – gas and water.”

Digging up solutions

Sandy geology is easier to tunnel through, he said, but may be more difficult in ensuring the structural integrity of tunnels. He added that while the Dubai Loop project would be “a massive undertaking”, potentially with limited benefits relative to the costs, it was feasible.

Peter Schwinger, a transport consultant who has worked in the UAE, said that a standard metro system would be preferable to the underground car-operated scheme of the Las Vegas Convention Centre Loop.

“The maximum design capacity of Dubai Metro, for example, is 22,000 to 25,000 passengers per hour and direction, while the maximum design capacity of the Las Vegas Loop is only 10 per cent of that – some 2,250 passengers per hour and direction,” he said. “The main capacity constraints are not the tunnels, but the stations [in Las Vegas]. They are operated like taxi stands with vehicles pulling in and out.”

Rather than investing in a Las Vegas-style Loop with cars, the authorities in Dubai would be better off building an underground system with larger carriages, as these can carry more people, he claimed.

“It is basically a bunch of Teslas running in asphalted metro tunnels and stations,” Mr Schwinger said of the Las Vegas Loop. “The type of tunnel and station box design required for the ‘Loop’ system is very similar to that of an underground metro, so the inherent and immediate question is: Why not build an underground metro instead?”

He also said that TBC had not shared details with transport analysts about how it can build tunnels more cheaply than has typically been the case. “Such information will be essential for the Dubai Government to make an informed decision,” he said.

Apostolos Kyriazis, an architecture and urban planning researcher at Abu Dhabi University, said a key reason for building underground was “to bypass the surface traffic”.

He said, though, that rather than creating a new underground transport network, he would prefer a wider review of Dubai’s transport that considered zoning and urban planning.

“A good public transport network is being able to engage with people in being able to walk, bike or drive short distances within the cities,” he added.