Can California solve Dubai’s choking traffic problem?

• Interview with Glydways CEO
• Company makes autonomous vehicles
• ‘Faster and cheaper to build than trains’

A favourite pastime for Dubai’s residents is complaining of choking traffic and a crowded metro. And who can blame them? They spend an average of 35 hours a year delayed on the roads. 

The UAE is exploring multiple approaches to address its growing mobility and congestion problems, from self-driving buses to flying taxis.

Now, Californian-based Glydways is working with Dubai and Abu Dhabi to explore the deployment of its mass transit system that it says is faster and cheaper to build and operate than trains.

Its autonomous electric vehicles run on wheels and dedicated lanes. These can be added to the side of existing roads, above or under ground.

Its passenger vehicles, which it calls Glydcars, can accommodate up to four people and are designed to be available on-demand around the clock.

Supplied/Glydways

They are only two metres wide, approximately the size of a small car, and as such much nimbler and lighter than a train-based car or carriage, according to chief executive Mark Seeger. 

“We are not a taxi, we don’t do door-to-door,” Seeger says. “But we would come from the mall to your neighbourhood, within walking distance of your home.” 

They do not require the tracks, wiring or switches needed for trains. Instead, they need only to meet “pedestrian-grade” infrastructure standards and do not use nor need the engineering of regular roads required by buses, trucks and other heavy vehicles.

If Glydways were to be successful in providing a new approach to mass transit in the UAE, it would be operating in an increasingly crowded space.

Dubai, for example, has given a permit to Apollo Go, a ride‑hailing platform run by Chinese technology company Baidu to test driverless vehicles. And last year Uber and WeRide announced commercial operations of fully driverless robotaxis in Abu Dhabi. Masdar, also in Abu Dhabi, offers autonomous shuttles.

Matyas Rehak/Shutterstock

California, which is also renowned for its rammed highways and love-in with the automobile, may not seem like the best source for innovation in dealing with the problems, but necessity is the mother of invention.

The company is testing its system in Richmond, California, where it has an engineering and demonstration facility. In recent years, it has linked up with the airports in San Jose, California, and Atlanta, Georgia, to develop internal transport. 

Seeger says that in California to build one mile of rail transit costs about $2.2 billion, while one mile of glideways is about $50 million, so it’s around 98 percent cheaper. “In most countries that we operate in, the numbers are smaller, but the ratio is about the same.”

Supplied/Glydways

A Glydways system at full capacity can move 10,000 people per hour, or approximately the same as a “five-lane superhighway in the space of a bike lane,” he says. And it can do so at about a tenth of the cost of building and operating a subway system.

The company is at different stages of advancing partnerships in both Dubai and Abu Dhabi, according to Seeger.

He says Glydways is working towards a possible launch in Dubai before the end of this year, though he was not at liberty to discuss details.

The company separately signed an interim deal with the Abu Dhabi Investment Office (Adio) in November to assess the potential to deploy its mass transit system there. 

Adio declined to comment through a spokesperson, citing the early stage of the partnership. 

Further reading:

• Rail to do heavy lifting for GCC in age of flying taxis
• Traffic congestion tightens grip on Dubai and Riyadh
• Gulf races ahead on infrastructure for flying taxis