Dubai's two new Salik toll gates to be activated on November 24

New gates will be in operation on Business Bay Crossing on Al Khail Road and in Al Safa South on Sheikh Zayed Road

The Jebel Ali Salik gate was established in 2018 and was set to reduce traffic by about 25 per cent. Victor Besa / The National

Two new Salik road toll gates in Dubai will be brought into operation on Sunday, November 24, it was announced on Friday.

The gates have been installed at the Business Bay Crossing on Al Khail Road and in Al Safa South, on Sheikh Zayed Road, between Al Meydan Street and Umm Al Sheif Street.

The activation date was confirmed in a notice sent by Ibrahim Al Haddad, chief executive of Salik, to Hamed Ali, chief executive of the Dubai Financial Market. Plans to introduce the additional charging points – which bring the number of Salik gates in the emirate to 10 – were first announced in January.

Authorities previously said the locations had been chosen after extensive traffic studies, in an effort to reduce congestion. Salik Company – the operator of Dubai's toll gates – was directed to establish the new gates by the Roads and Transport Authority.

Cutting congestion

The authority expects the new Business Bay gate to help reduce traffic congestion by between 12 per cent to 15 per cent, while the gate in Al Safa South is set to cut congestion by 15 per cent.

“The addition of new toll gates in two increasingly busy locations marks the latest milestone in the growth plan that we set out at the time of Salik’s initial public offering," Mr Al Haddad said in January.

After the January announcement, Mattar Al Tayer, director general of the RTA, said Dubai's road toll strategy was key to its efforts to reduce traffic.

"The existing toll gates contributed to reducing the total travel time in Dubai by six million hours annually, decreasing traffic volumes on Al Maktoum and Al Garhoud bridges by 26 per cent, reducing travel times on Sheikh Zayed Road and Al Ittihad Street by 24 per cent, and increasing the number of mass transit users by nine million riders per annum," he said.

Boosting revenue

Salik was established in its current form as a public joint stock company in June 2022. Tolls represent about 87 per cent of its revenue.

Since July 2022, Salik has been operating as a separate legal entity from the RTA through a 49-year concession agreement. Salik raised Dh3.73 billion ($1 billion) in September 2022 from its initial public offering, which was more than 49 times oversubscribed across all tranches, with total gross demand at Dh184.2 billion.

In December, Salik joined Emaar Malls to deliver a parking management system at Dubai Mall. The plan aimed to use Salik technology for automatic fee collection for ticketless parking and vehicle plate recognition to deduct fees from Salik user accounts.

Why were tolls introduced in Dubai?

The Salik system was introduced in 2007 to ease congestion on Sheikh Zayed Road and raise state revenue. Tags fixed to windscreens can be purchased online or at service stations. They can be topped up online or through recharge cards.

Motorists are charged Dh4 to pass through each gate, with the amount is deducted automatically. The eight other toll gates are at the following locations:

• Al Barsha
• Al Garhoud
• Al Maktoum
• Al Mamzar South
• Al Mamzar North
• Al Safa
• Airport Tunnel
• Jebel Ali

When the most recent toll gate was introduced in Jebel Ali in 2018, transport officials said it could reduce traffic by about 25 per cent. The RTA aims to reduce traffic levels through a comprehensive road-building strategy and is also working to bolster public transport options to take more cars off the roads.