Dubai: Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has called upon the youth to join the ‘Youth For Public Transport (Y4PT) Facebook Group’ for easy access to the category of school and university students in order to motivate them to use public transportation in their daily commute. The group holds awareness campaigns and initiatives to highlight the benefits of using public transport to individuals, the community, the environment and the economy and enables youth to exchange ideas and proposals and keep abreast of the latest local and international studies on public transport.
Objectives
Explaining the objectives of Y4PT Facebook Group, Rowdah Al Mehrizi, Director of Marketing and Corporate Communications, Corporate Administrative Support Services Sector, RTA, said: “This Facebook Group focuses on achieving three objectives namely, to engage school and university students in RTA initiatives for youth, involve students remotely at RTA’s events, and invite students to take part in RTA’s volunteering initiatives. Y4PT Facebook Group seeks to ensure quick communication and share content such as photos, videos, articles, lectures and remote workshops, and provide as much information as possible for youth to view, benefit from and add to it.”
Range of topics
Al Mehrizi explained that youth could join the Group and browse the topics open for discussion on the Facebook page: (https://www.facebook.com/groups/dubaiyouthforpublictransport). Topics include awareness campaigns on the benefits of using public transportation to the environment, health, safety and the economy. There will also be educational campaigns about traffic safety, and discussions about the latest services, projects and volunteer opportunities offered to youth. So, the Y4PT page offers a chance to view the latest services, projects and volunteering opportunities for youth, added Al Mehrizi.
Promoting public transport culture
RTA is keen to work with the youth and involve them in local initiatives to enlighten them about the global trends of transportation and encourage them to use public transportation in their daily commute. Using public transport is a culture that needs sustained efforts to motivate and attract youth to using such diverse modes provided in Dubai at the highest international specifications.
RTA took the initiative to engage youth in various local and international initiatives related to the use of public transport and traffic safety.
It has invited the youth to join the Public Transport Hackathon group, which managed over the course of three years (2017 to 2019) innovative ideas and technological solutions to overcome the challenges of Dubai’s public transport means comprising public buses, Metro, tram and marine transport. It also focused on promoting traffic safety and smart apps to ease accessibility to public services where considerable number of students across the UAE were engaged.
