Dubai: In a major upgrade of its mobile services, the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has launched five smartphone applications that will offer 30 new services to motorists as well as public transport users, Gulf News can confirm.
The services include top-up of Nol and Salik, renewal of vehicle registration and driving licence, smart parking as well as application for commercial advertisements and tenders.
The five applications, Smart Salik, Smart Parking, Public Transport, Drivers and Vehicles as well as Corporate Services, are part of the Smart City initiative launched by His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.
The applications will complement the existing RTA apps — Wojhati, RTA Dubai and Smart Taxi — taking the number of RTA apps to eight, offering 53 services through the convenience of mobile phones.
RTA aims to offer 200 of its services through smartphones by May 2015.
“Launching these applications comes in implementation of the initiative of His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to transform Dubai into the smartest city of the world within three years. The smart city assigns top priority to the comfort and well-being of the population, and provides services efficiently through modern and sophisticated technologies. Thus, smart mobility is considered one of the key pillars of the smart city,” said Mattar Al Tayer, Chairman of the Board and Executive Director of RTA, while launching the applications.
The new applications will make life easier for motorists as well as public transport users, offering a wide array of services on the go.
“We have taken great care in designing the app. We have had a lot of discussions with users in our attempt to know what people want and we have come up with applications that will make life easier for both motorists and public transport users,” said Ahmad Hashem Behroozian, CEO of RTA’s Licensing Agency and Head of RTA’s smart app team.
Highlighting some of the key services, Behroozian said: “We have now offered options for mParking users to pay through the SMS system that will charge people 30 fils as transaction fees and a new smart parking system that will only charge the parking fee through mpay using the credit or debit card. Renewal of vehicle registration as well as driving licences can also be done through the new Driver and Vehicle application now.”
In another significant upgrade, vehicles registered in other emirates can now use mParking without having to register in the system, which was previously the case.
Another important service is Smart Salik, which will allow motorists to maintain a Salik account through their mobiles, while making top-ups, paying fines, disputing violations as well as checking on the number of trips made through Salik gates. One can also add new vehicles to the account as well as top up a friend’s account.
Interestingly, people can also use the smartphone camera to take a snapshot of the Salik top-up card number and the system will recognise the characters on the card, read the number and process it automatically.
Apart from offering Nol information and top-up facilties, the Public Transport application will provide all the information about the various means of transport available in Dubai along with fares, locations of Metro stations and bus stops as well as live update of bus and Metro timings. It will also enable direct payment of fares for NFC-enabled mobile phones.
The public transport app can also help users apply for personalised Nol cards or convert the silver and gold cards into personalised cards.
The Corporate Services app will allow companies to request for advertisements, enquire about leasing retail outlets as well as information of new and existing tenders.
He said RTA plans to add more services to the applications in the next few months
“We are working on services that will provide information to motorists about available parking spaces in parking lots as well as RTA-managed parking buildings. We are also working on maps that will offer traffic updates as well as information on diversions on various roads,” added Behroozian.
Importantly, the new upgraded RTA system will also allow for a single log in for all the various RTA apps.
The application is available for download across iOS, Android and BlackBerry platforms and will soon be available on Windows as well.
