Dubai’s Roads & Transport Authority (RTA) is expected to open five more stations on the Red line of Dubai metro in October.

The stations that are due to be opened include Business Bay, First Gulf Bank, Sharaf DG, Jumeirah Lake Towers and Nakheel stations. They will bring the total number of stations that are open to 26. The three remaining stations will be opened at a later date.

The metro’s Green line is due to open in August 2011 after a year-long delay. The Green line will be 23 kilometres long when complete and will have 18 stations. Trial runs of the trains have now started between Al-Nahda and Healthcare City.

The RTA says that about 30 million passengers used the metro in its first year of operation (MEED 8:9:10).

The daily ridership of the Dubai Metro jumped from 54,683 passengers in October 2009 to 116,340 passengers in June 2010, representing a growth rate of 212 per cent. Last July, the metro daily ridership hit an all-time high as the number of passengers who used the metro on 1 July reached 130,529 passengers.