Ahmed Bahrozyan explains legislation in Dubai is a bottom up/top down process

Few federal or state authorities in the Middle East can be as progressive as Dubai’s Rail and Transport Authority. A few years ago, the city was threatening to grind to a halt with commuter and heavy vehicle traffic clogging the streets.

The city’s rapid growth meant the city was ill-prepared to handle the volume of traffic, especially along the Sheikh Zayed Road, where much of the development was taking place. The Rail and Transport Authority, better known to Dubai’s population as the RTA, was tasked with clearing the bottleneck.

To manage it, the RTA ventured into the unknown, scoring a number of firsts for the region including the introduction of controls of vehicles on main trunk routes during peak hours, introducing Salik, an automated toll system for its roads, and most famously the Metro system which has taken on much of the burden of commuter traffic along the Sheikh Zayed Road.

While construction and development has slowed down in the Emirate, the RTA feels that it still has significant obstacles to overcome to control traffic and ensure a fair deal for fleet and plant operators.

Ahmed Bahrazyan, the RTA’s CEO is remarkably frank about the size of the task ahead and the difficulties of being an empowered forward-thinking agency operating within the Federal system that governs Dubai and the UAE.

“We are responsible for the registering and the servicing of vehicle in Dubai, and this is where we have done a great deal of work over the last years,” he says. “We’ve been trying to simplify the interaction of commercial organisations in terms of managing their fleet operations. From a legislation perspective, the government comes up with legislation with the aim of achieving a specific goal. And for commercial vehicles this has been aimed at road safety.”

He says that when dealing with legislation coming down from the government the RTA has to strive to find a balance that still looks after the interest of industry.

“The challenge in striking that balance is making everybody happy. Ultimately you don’t make everyone happy but you try your best,” he admits.

In the UAE legislation and regulation is introduced in two ways: top down from government and a bottom up process. The hugely progressive RTA frequently finds itself pushing up but is often restrained as the UAE government strikes its own balance of ensuring all the emirates can comply with its rules. The UAE is a fusion of seven emirates, each with its own strong identity and rules, and what works for Dubai may not always apply to, say, Fujairah.

“We are known throughout the UAE as introducing our own legislation, sometimes raising it up to federal level where it is adopted by the rest of the country, but not always,” he explains. “Dubai often has its own legislation. However as people start thinking more about it, at least in terms in terms of vehicle registration, we are noticing more legislation is coming from top-down and the easier it is becoming for us to implement it. It also becomes easier for industry to understand the rules and reduce confusion in how they are implemented in the UAE.”

Dubai remains the only emirate where commercial and heavy vehicle operators register with a licensing organisation like the RTA, elsewhere it is handled by the police.  According to Bahrazyan this has created a gap between what is expected of operators within the country.

“We don’t like to talk about confusion, but we do hear more about it from industry. Especially when you are talking about commercial organisations moving vehicles across the country and the way you license in Dubai (with the RTA) compared to elsewhere you license with the police. You have difficulty in dealing with different authorities and organisations.”

Licensing by the RTA is a relatively recent requirement in Dubai. Starting in 2008, the past four years have been a learning a curve in how the organisation can introduce new initiatives as well as integrating with the police’s own policies.

“What makes legislation even more difficult to manage is that there are many players involved,” he comments. “We still have to function within law enforcement and have a lot of interaction with the police.  There is one challenge of co-ordinating with industry but another challenge of operating within government itself.”

He explains the number of layers of authorities that govern the roads. There is not only the police and the RTA but also the public prosecution which is responsible for enforcement. At the Federal level there is also the Ministry of Interior.“They have a big say in traffic law and how it is implemented,” he comments.

As well as the Ministry of Interior there is also the Transport Authority that pre-dates the RTA by two years. Normally when an order is issued by them on behalf of the government, these become by-laws that have to fit within individuals Emirate’s legal framework, he explains.

“This is where it becomes a little bit tricky,” he says. “Every organisation implements the law, let’s say the essence of the law, at different levels. This would be the result of a different understanding of the law, Dubai may have a 5% difference with Abu Dhabi, for example.

“There is, shall I say, also healthy competition between the different cities in the UAE, and everybody wants to attract companies by making the rules easier for them. It’s not very difficult for a transport company in Dubai to register vehicles in Ras al Khaimah or Abu Dhabi, the owner just needs a branch in that emirate.”

He continues: “The vehicles are going all the way through the country; the police implement fines differently, the standards of testing and registration are different. What we’re trying to do is reduce that level of confusion.”

To achieve this, the RTA is preparing a set of initiatives to make the rules of the road much more straightforward. Echoing the lead from the government, the RTA is continuing to develop regulation on road safety. Although commercial vehicle traffic through Dubai is more tightly controlled than ever before Bahrazyan says it is still a frustratingly big contributor to accident rates.

“We want to achieve safer roads,” he states. “Around the world commercial vehicles contribute a small percentage to the overall fleet of vehicles in countries and cities, but a big contribution to accidents. And normally the consequences of their involvement is quite big too, resulting in deaths and major injuries.”

Bahrazyan says it is imperative that industry supports government in terms of maintaining these vehicles to ensure they are safe to be on the road.

“When the RTA was founded in November 2005, Dubai had a record of 21 deaths per 100,000 population from road accidents. Compare that to the UK or Sweden where the number of deaths was 4 or 5 per 100,000.”

It was a huge gap, but he says initiatives over the last five or six years have successfuly lowered the rate to 8 deaths per 100,000 population. In many ways it is an example of how the RTA and the government can work together to introduce effective rules that benefit all.

“This is a significant reduction in a relatively short time. However we’re still not happy with that and we want to get below five. In order to do that we have to be bold.”

Clearly enthused he relays an example of how the RTA has introduced a policy, the Vehicle Defect Clearing System (VDCS) project, which has been raised to federal level with the RTA proposing its implementation plan across the UAE.

“The objective of this project to ensure the safety of heavy vehicles in Dubai,” he explains. “Every vehicle has to be re-inspected every year. We also do specific targeted inspection on the road, where we stop vehicles on an arbitrary basis. We work with the police, who do the inspection and issue fines.

Via the VDCS system there are now a range of fines and defect notices in place. According to the extent of the defect the scale the company is given a time to prove that the defect has been fixed.

“If it’s a minor defect then a company has a couple of weeks to fix it and get it certified at one of our centres. We feel like we’re encouraging, and in a way forcing, people to not only pay a fine but fix the vehicle.”

At the same time, he says, the RTA is developing a database of operators and their vehicles. Companies that continually offend could find themselves facing hefty fines and possible cancellation of their license to trade. It’s bad news for operators that are cutting corners in a competitive marketplace, but it’s good news for road operators: “Legislation needs to be consistent and implemented across government to make it easier for industry to comply and we need more communication with industry itseld. The majority of the industry is conscious about road safety and is willing to play a role.”