Magical Mystery Bus

This blog isn’t just about me riding my bike (and extolling its many virtues), I’m also out to cover other ways of getting around Dubai, like the bus!

My first two weeks in Dubai were spent out at the Marina where we were given a short term apartment while we looked around for a place. Unfortunately, my office is on the other end of town in Bur Dubai, which is quite a ways no matter what form of transport you take - but a bit far to bike every day on a folding bike (which is all I had with me at the time).

I can see the appeal of the Marina; its right next to the beach, and they have a rather nice walkable outdoor shopping street where Emiratees like to cruise their beemers on the weekend. But unless you work in Media city or thereabouts, it’s really not very conveniently located. There would probably be quite a bit less traffic in town if people decided to live closer to where they work (we looked into living in Bur Dubai, but the other half didn't fancy any of the available options). I realize this isn’t always possible based on price, but it makes a whole lot more sense than sitting in traffic for an hour.

Anyway, I didn’t much feel like taking a taxi everyday (or for paying for the taxi everyday, something along the lines of 50 Dirham each way, doesn't seem like a lot, but it adds up quickly), so I did some investigating and figured out how to take the bus to work! Finding useful bus information on the RTA website is not as easy as one might expect. Pretty much anywhere else in the world I could have found a nice legible map (or even a route planner) and plotted my course with little or no trouble, but of course this is Dubai.

I did manage to find the list of bus route maps fairly easily – its on the ‘public transport’ page, but, curiously there was no overall map of bus routes included. Being new to town and not knowing all of the place names I had to click onto each individual route map and see where it goes (there are surprisingly quite a few routes). Only later on did I find the map of the whole system, cleverly located under the ‘about’ tab on the left side of the page – for no apparent reason.

Website Randomness

Cleverly hidden full bus map

Neither map is entirely useful, leaving out quite a bit of key info, but I really dig the RTA staff photos, I do believe they are holding a beard contest. I believe the taxi guy is winning.


Here is the route map for the X25 express bus from the Marina, showing a variety of available bus stops (note, not the same stops as the full bus map). If your stop is not on the map, hit the stop button and hope for the best!

X25 Bus map as seen from space

Lucky for me I lived right at the end of the line, because otherwise I would have been very confused about where to board as there are no marked bus stops in the Marina! I rode that bus for two weeks and never could really figure out how people knew to stand in certain places to get picked up.

The X25, waiting stealthily in the fog at one of it's mystery bus stops

There was also the matter of ‘express service’, which of course meant we would skip some of the stops of our rival number 8 local bus. I am not sure how old the X25 route is, but somehow they haven’t yet managed to put up signs saying where it stops. Even further down the road in Jumeriah where there are clearly bus stops (nice air conditioned ones!), there is no mention of the X25. It makes it very hard to catch one in Jumeriah since it’s a bit of a guessing game as to which stop is express.

Its not all bad though, the buses are quite nice in fact, and the fare is a mere 2 dirham! There are small glimmers of hope for a logical system as well, like the new screens which tell you which stop is next. They would be great if they worked; the couple of operational ones I saw only updated the next stop when the driver opened the doors. Within 10 minutes we were a good 5 stops behind since we didn’t pick up passengers at every stop. Also, a new integrated trip planner seems to be in the offing. There is a link for it on the RTA website, but it leads to nowhere. Perhaps they are saving it for when the metro opens.


Trip time was pretty good considering the distance – and in general, buses in any city aren’t terribly fast (the M86 in Manhattan takes the ‘Pokey’ prize averaging just 3.5 mph!). It generally took about 1 hour from the bottom end of the Marina to the Al Ghubaiba bus station near the creek in Bur Dubai (this is about as predicted in the RTA schedule). From there I would either walk to work, or hop on my Brompton folding bike (easily carried on the bus) and shoot up to the office.

I didn’t see too many other western Expats (I think about 4 total in two weeks), but most of the bus passengers looked to be heading to office jobs. I had a co-worker ask if the people on the bus smelled. I was rather offended, since I was a person on the bus (a quick sniff of the pits said I was in the clear), but also at how racist people can become in this city. The whole affair is quite civil, and they even have a separate seating area for women up in the front (though women are allowed to roam freely through the bus as they please).

Bus interior with free roaming western female (and non-functioning display)

To the RTA’s credit, they are making huge improvements in service. They are adding 1616 buses, going from around 700 buses to over 2500 buses in a period of about 2 years! That in itself is quite a feat, and something to be lauded. According to Gulf News they are also claiming that when the metro opens, no one will be more than 100 metres from a bus or metro stop! This would be achieved by throwing 700 buses into service running feeder routes to the metro stations.

A 100 metre maximum walk from your front door to the bus stop would be quite an amazing feat considering some of the road layouts in town (think of the circuitous bus routes they would need in say the Springs). However, I think it might be a bit of hyperbole as a later article seems to suggest only 80% of Dubai will be covered by bus service at all when the metro opens. It’s a good goal though, they have definitely thought about how people might get to the stations in the summer time. I am going to guess the maximum walking distance for most people would be more likely around 400 – 800m, which still isn’t half bad.

I haven’t taken the bus since moving over to Downtown Burj Dubai, but until recently there wasn’t a bus to take. They have very kindly added a bit to the number 27 bus so that it now terminates at the Dubai Mall (though they haven’t updated the route map to reflect this, or put up bus stop signs). If it went straight to work I would be stoked, unfortunately it sort of veers off towards the Maktoum bridge. I might give it a go anyhow, variety is the spice of life, and I could catch this bus to the spice souk - thus squaring the power of variety available to me!

All in all, the bus is a pretty decent way to move about the city, especially if you have a route nearby your home or office. It can be a bit scattered in the newer developments, but I think this will eventually sort itself out. Why not be like Bizarro Billy Ocean, and give it a try!