RTA Honors Winners of 10th Dubai Sustainable Transport Award

Under the auspices of HH Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Dubai Crown Prince and Chairman of the Executive Council, the RTA honored the winners of the 10th Dubai Award for Sustainable Transport (DAST), comprising entities and individuals. The Award aims to encourage community organisations to play an active role in supporting sustainable transport, and re-asserting the leading role of the RTA in forging partnerships with various parties. The Award also contributes to raising the attention to sustainable transport amongst various organisations and the local media.

Victor Calise, commissioner at New York City Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities will be the guest of honor and keynote speaker in the opening event, which will take place at the Dubai World Trade Center.

HE Mattar Al Tayer, director general and chairman of the Board of Executive Directors of RTA, said, “The Dubai Award for Sustainable Transport is viewed as a practical manifestation of RTA’s strategy geared towards enhancing its vision of providing ‘Safe and Smooth Transport for All’ in keeping with the current upswing seen by the Emirate of Dubai spanning business, economic, tourist and real estate sectors among others.

“The Award has seen extensive evolution in the process to keep pace with the massive improvement projects & initiatives of the RTA. It has also broadened the scope of participation in the Award to enable the largest possible number of government and semi-government organizations as well as private companies to contribute to the improvement of sustainable transport drive in the UAE side by side with RTA’s efforts in this regard,” added.

Al Tayer was delighted with the huge growth made by the Award since inception in 2008. “In its 10th edition, DAST has seen a 30 percent growth in the number of participants compared to the 9th edition. The increase illustrates the growing importance of the Award amongst the business community as well as the public and private sectors. It depicts the keen attention of these parties to have a role in enriching and broadening the scope of sustainable transport in the UAE, especially Dubai,” he said.

“All accepted submissions that fulfil the conditions of the Award were assessed by judges’ panel based on precise and detailed evaluation criteria as per pre-defined weights and grades for each of the main and sub-criteria in order to ensure accuracy, objectivity and justice to all applications under review. Submissions made have undergone an appraisal cycle starting with receiving of nominations, vetting & validating their completion before the submission of final results,” he added.

DAST categories consist of two main divisions: Main Categories and Special Categories. Main categories comprise four awards; the first is Mobility Management, which focuses on applied practices & initiatives that contribute to raising the efficiency of using various types of mass transit systems. The second is Mobility Safety, which is concerned with practices & initiatives that contribute to raising the security & safety levels of commuters of various transit means. The third is Environmental Conservation, which is devoted to any practice or initiative capable of reducing the negative impact of transit systems on the environment. The fourth is People of Determination-Related Initiatives; which contribute directly or indirectly to easing the mobility of people of determination.

The special categories comprise four awards as well; the first is the Best Academic Research for academicians submitting the best research on sustainable transport in which the number of honourees has been raised from one to three. The second is the Best Student Project; which relates to the best student project in the field of sustainable transport across the UAE in the field of sustainable transport. The third is the Best Media Person; which targets members of media who made the best media coverage of sustainable transport nation-wide. The fourth award is the Best Media Team; which aims at identifying the best media team that has made the best coverage of sustainable transport across the nation.