Feature: Inside look at 'brain' of Dubai Metro's operations

Operating on a 24|7 basis, the Operations Control Centre (OCC) is the central hub monitoring passengers and trains to ensure a safe journey from start to finish.

With over 9,000 cameras installed in coordination with Dubai Police to monitor passengers across its stations, the centre works on three lines of operations ensuring passenger safety on both the Red and Green lines. 

Director of Rail Operations at Dubai Roads and Transport Authority’s (RTA) Rail Agency, Hassan Al Mutawa, told ARN News, “This is one of the most critical items that we are looking into it, and we have different levels of responses once the first one starts, from the agent who's sitting here in the OCC or even the staff they are available in the station, and if this emergency or the case needs to be escalated, the flare team, which is the first line response team, they directly get deployed to the station to fix the issue.”

Revealing Dubai Metro as one of the first to adopt AI in the region, Mutawa added its integration through remote condition monitoring, predicting potential issues before they become major problems, along with the “Health Hub,” a system focused on analysing train conditions to identify if they should resume its operation or head back for maintenance in the depot. 

After recent announcements on the introduction of a shorter route during peak hours, Mutawa reflected on the positive feedback of the initiative, highlighting potential additions of shorter routes based on ridership, pattern, and demographics, stating the metro is “agile enough to change as well”.

Reaching over 850,000 passengers per day, Mutawa said, “We are adopting and accommodating the changes, the number increased of the passengers year by year and day by day, and based on this increment, we are changing and adopting new and different scenarios for operation, not only for the train movement, also the crowd control within the station itself, and the coordination between us and our colleagues in public transport sectors as well.”

The OCC strives to maintain a high efficiency rate, achieving 99.7 per cent on-time performance as one of the world’s most reliable metros.