Yesterday 1st Nov was Public Transport Day /Free Transport Day in Dubai. It was being advertised nicely last week to make more & more people aware of it to encourage them using public transport.

900,000 people used free public transport on Friday (1^st Nov 2013) taking advantage of unlimited free trips to mark the fourth edition of the Roads and Transport Authority?s annual Public Transport Day   while 96 teams participated in marathon in Dubai .

Many roads in Dubai were free of traffic as people left their cars at home for a day to use other modes of transport, which resulted in an estimated 10 per cent reduction in Dubai?s CO2 emissions generated through vehicular traffic. The rush on the metro and buses was overwhelming.

Based at Burj Plaza, around 500 people participated in the marathon that included 100 teams of five members each. Twenty of those teams were representatives of government departments.

To begin with, the marathon required participants to answer certain basic questions about RTA?s public transport facilities and once the teams got through that level, they headed to the RTA buses which took them to Dubai Mall Metro station.

The participants headed to the Burjuman Metro station from Dubai Mall Metro station on the trains and from there took a bus to Al Seef Metro station, crossed the creek on the water bus, got on the bus again, went to the Deira City Centre Metro station, boarded a train and came back to Burj Plaza.

As they moved across the route assigned to them, all of the members had to stay together and solve the clues given to them to find their check points. Each team had to stop at their assigned check points and get their participation booklets stamped by the organisers.

The teams that completed all the tasks and came back first to Burj Plaza received a cash prize of Dh10,000, while the first and second runners up received Dh7,000 and Dh5,000 respectively.

 Isnt an interesting way to educate people about how to cut carbon emissions using public transport and also to inculcate team spirit among people giving them fun filled activities at the same time.

I could not participate in marathon as I was participating in Pink Walkathon for breast cancer awareness yesterday. But from my side to show my support to help reducing carbon emission , I requested 3 of my friends to not go by their own/parents car and rather come with me in our car , like car pooling or shared car so as to have minimum cars on the road thereby reducing carbon emission.

I strongly agree that we must use public transort as much as possible as there are many advantages of using public transport like :

1. It helps cutting carbon emission.

2. It helps reducing traffic congestion on the road which in turn is good for the maintenance of city as well.

3. It keeps law n order in place as less cars means less accidents or voilations.

4. It turns economical as well.

5. It encourages and appreciates  the efforts of local Government who is spending so much to build the transport and related infrastructure facilities. Also this way we are utilising the service available . If we dont use , public transport departments would be in loss.

So my fellow Tunza members and Ambassadors , lets all pledge that wherever and whenever possible we would use public transport.

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I participated in Breast Cancer Awareness /Pink Walkathon