Assessment of Accessibility and Connectivity to Dubai's Green Line Metro Stations

Abstract

The Dubai Metro is a vital public transportation asset in the city serving millions of riders annually. It was inaugurated with the aim of increasing public transportation ridership. Especially with Dubai's rapidly growing population and traffic congestion problems. With 49 stations on the system, they aim to link strategic locations including Dubai Airport terminals, Shopping centres, and other important functions in the city. And make them more accessible to pedestrians. This study assesses pedestrian connectivity in Dubai's Green metro line passing through Dubai's old CBD. Pedestrian connectivity was evaluated by three parameters, distance, directness, and betweenness of street networks. These parameters helped evaluate how pedestrians interact in the urban streets and how they access metro stations at different walking distances (400 to 1600 meters). Distance is measured by pedestrian catchment areas (PCAs), the Directness factor is measured by pedestrian route directness (PRD), and betweenness (BC) is measured the betweenness centrality measure. The results help develop conclusions and decisions regarding network designs to accommodate pedestrians by providing alleyways to provide direct access to stations. This type of development is essential in planning future TOD projects to promote walkability. The study also evaluates different streets and alleyway systems, designed during different growth periods. The thesis seeks to identify variations in connectivity trends associated with time and changes in the planning language of Dubai's street network typologies. Findings show a decreasing trend in network efficiency over time and an increase in overall street network connectivity when alleys are incorporated in the analysis. Comparing both networks (with and without alleyways) indicate the alleyway contribution being the most significant in suburban growth phase, which highlights the potential in this underutilized infrastructure of Dubai's streets. It is vital for future transit-walkability studies to incorporate pedestrian alleyways into their analysis.

Date of Award	Dec 2020
Original language	American English