Salik road toll expansion begins

"Salik is an effective tool to reduce the usage of private cars."

Matter Al Tayer, Executive Director, RTA.


At last an admission that it's about getting private cars off the roads.

The comment came as part of the announcement that additional Salik road toll gates will begin operating on September 9 on Sheikh Zayed Road, between Interchanges 1 and 2, and on Maktoum Bridge.

An interesting claim was this:

Motorists will be charged once if they pass through two Salik gates including the new one near the Second Interchange (Safa Park interchange) and the existing one at Barsha on Shaikh Zayed Road, in one journey.

How will they know it's one journey? Is there a time limit?

They put the toll on Garhoud Bridge and, surprise, surprise, traffic became heavier on Maktoum Bridge. Now they have to ease that, so on goes a toll. After September 9 the temporary floating bridge and Business Bay Bridge will get more traffic - the tunnel isn't an option in peak times because traffic is backed up for kilometres already. So a toll will go on them...and the expansion of the toll system is guaranteed.

No alternatives yet of course, but at least there should be one for a few people on a few specific journeys next year when the Metro is due to begin operating. That'll mean a handful of cars can be left at home.

It looks to me as though the planning is up to the usual RTA standard.


All the papers have the details, Gulf News also have a map showing the location of the new gates; their story is here.

Motoring and stuff

According to a report in Khaleej Times today, the Ministry of Interior has announced that much tougher penalties for various traffic violations will apply from March 1.

Both fleeing the scene of an accident in which someone was injured and driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs will mean a prison term and a fine of not less than Dh20,000.

Jail, a fine or both will be the result for people driving when they've been banned, driving without a licence or driving a vehicle they're not licenced to drive. Jail for at least three months, a fine of at least Dh5,000 or both are the punishment.

There are also stiffer sentences for people guilty of various number plate offences, such as making/using fake number plates, changing or distorting number plates.

I've said many times before that I'm all for education and awareness programmes to change driver attitudes. But for an immediate impact I'm in favour of tougher punishment right now, fines, jail, vehicle confiscation in particular, to force the morons to do the right thing. Let's hope there's better enforcement than has been the case in the past.

You can read the full story and interview with Colonel Ghaith Al Za’abi, Director of the Traffic Department, here.

There were a couple of other traffic-related stories that caught my eye during the last few days too.

Dubai Police patrols will all be issued with a measuring device able to check the level of tinting on vehicle windows, the limit being 30% of course. The device has been undergoing tests and traffic police have completed a training course in its use. The tests apparently confirmed the accuracy of the device, which is placed on the vehicle window, a button is pushed and, hey presto, an accurate reading of the level of tinting is displayed.

That's a positive move - driving is bad enough without the added hazzard of drivers not being able to see where they're going.

Salik fiasco

The other story was this bizarre Salik fines being waived yes-they-are-no-they're-not fiasco.

What a great example of the factor underlying most of our problems here in Dubai - make a decision and act on it before it's been thought through. (That will be the subject of another posting because it's the most frustrating thing of all about Dubai).

Our beloved RTA announced that as a gesture of goodwill - no, seriously, that's what they said - they were waiving all fines for the first four months of the system.

The Director of Intelligent Traffic Systems (isn't that an oxymoron?) at the RTA said: "There is no problem with the system (no, stop laughing) but we are lenient on issuing fines because some motorists did not provide correct data".

Now Look! I've told you before, will you please stop causing the RTA problems!

All of us who'd spent hours or days trying to find an outlet to buy our Salik tags, spent Dh50 to set up our account, topped up our account when told to do so, were steaming with fury. Why did we bother!

The papers were full of the anger.

Then the RTA realised they hadn't actually thought it through, gave it some quick thought for an hour or two and next day announced a change of policy.

Now they said that fines would be waived for motorists registered with Salik, while motorists who'd used the toll-road without tags would still be fined. Registered motorists who'd paid fines already could claim their money back.

Oh, and the waiver is only for individual car owners and not for companies.

And motor-cycle users, registered or not, will have their fines waived until December 31 (2007 presumably).

I'm more convinced than ever that the Monty Python team are involved in writing statements & policy for the RTA.

It's a bureaucratic nightmare in the making so I'm sure we haven't heard the last of this stuff-up.

I know you think I'm making this up but I swear it's true. You can read the full original reports in Gulf News here and here.

RTA comes clean

It's all about getting our private cars off the roads folks. That's The Grand Plan.

As I said in my post 'Stupid, stupid me' last month, it took a while for me to see the obvious, but now the RTA has come clean.

In the new Emirates Business 24/7 (who on earth came up with that for a title?) there's the admission that Salik is to be extended to cover all major roads and Creek crossings. The objective is to "encourage people to use public transport."

Bad news for the huge number of Dubai's workforce who live in Sharjah because of the impossibly high rents in Dubai - all the gateways between the two emirates will be toll-controlled.

If they, and the rest of us, are going to have to use public transport to get around I hope we're going to actually get an efficient public transport system.

The story in Emirates Business 24/7 is here.

More Salik twists...

I just received a message from Salik that my account needs topping up.

Strange, I thought, I've only been through the tollgates six times, which means I still have Dh26 in my account.

Scrolling through the message I found the answer - which was a surprise. "Balance of 30AED is below the set recharge value." it told me.

Set recharge value? Do we know about this? I didn't. I haven't seen that anywhere. Have I missed it?

Anyway, I went into the website and eventually found the page that lets me manage and top up my account.

Another surprise - I couldn't top it back up to the original Dh50 because the minimum amount accepted is Dh50.

A 'set recharge value' of Dh30 and a minimum top up of Dh50. Have I misssed the information on all this? Does everyone but me know about it?

Should I grass?

When we check on the search engine questions that lead people to our blogs we get some interesting results.

Bloggers have posted some classics, here's my contribution from someone in Dubai who asked this question of Google at 1.48pm today:

http://www.google.co.uk/search...to destroy tollgate&as_q=Dubai

The full question was: "Toll Gate How to destroy tollgate Dubai"

"Salik increases commuting time"

Commuting times since Salik was introduced have increased by between 30 and 50 minutes. So say motorists, struggling with congestion on the alternative routes now congested by people avoiding the toll section of Sheikh Zayed Road.


Photo. Megan Hirons. Gulf News

Congestion at the intersection near Deira City Centre where the road from the Floating Bridge meets the other roads.


The stated aim of the toll was to reduce traffic on SZR by 25% and it seems to have done that.

But that was always far too simplistic, too one-dimensional.

What about the ripple effect that so many of us have talked about for months? The pressure on the alternative roads that simply can't take the extra traffic. The pressure on the other bottlenecks, which were already full to bursting?

The already jammed Shindagah tunnel and Al Maktoum bridge are having to take even more traffic. Al Ittihad, Baniyas, Al Maktoum and Airport roads are struggling to cope with all the extra toll-avoiding and Floating Bridge traffic.

There's always a bigger picture and it's far from clear that the RTA looked at this one.

It's a fact of traffic management anywhere in the world that moving traffic more quickly from one area to another simply means that it piles up more quickly at the first obstruction. Widen SZR to six lanes each way, for example, and a bigger volume is brought more quickly to Trade Centre Roundabout, with it's sequence of traffic lights. Screech! The traffic has to stop and the queue just gets longer and longer.

Move the traffic onto Al Wasl or Beach Roads - and they hit Satwa. Screech! The traffic has to stop and the queue just gets longer and longer.

Move the traffic off Garhoud Bridge onto Maktoum or Floating bridges - and they hit Deira. Screech! The traffic has to stop and the queue just gets longer and longer.

The only way around it, overseas, has been to literally go around it - build by-pass roads that avoid the towns and cities entirely. The RTA is building many more bridges across the Creek - in itself a good move but there's no emphasis on what's really needed, roads that by-pass the city and the Creek entirely between Jebel Ali/Abu Dhabi and the northern emirates.

We need more bridges for the increasing number of people who live and/or work in Dubai and need to cross between Deira and Bur Dubai. But we deperately also need more by-pass roads for the increasing number of people who don't need or want to be clogging up the city roads at all but are forced to do so because of the road 'planning'.

By the way, have a look at the driving standards shown in the photo. The lights for traffic coming from the left are obviously green because cars are across the junction going straight ahead or filtering left. Look at the number of cars that have crossed from top right and are now blocking the intersection.

Morons.

Gulf News has the story of the increased congestion here.

RTA blames us again.

Earlier this month I posted about claims that Chaos is not RTA's fault.

The RTA was blaming the motoring public for all the faults in their Salik administration.

They're at it again today.

In 7Days there's a report from yet another motorist about faults in the accounting system. The report ends: "The RTA confirmed there have been a few teething problems with the new system - something they say has been mainly caused by people providing incorrect mobile phone numbers to Salik."

Enough is enough! Will you all please stop causing problems for the blameless RTA!!

Floating Bridge. Why not 24/7?

The long-awaited and overdue Floating Bridge was opened for business yesterday. That makes five crossing options for the bottleneck of the Creek, so it's very welcome.

It is, according to 7Days, giving drivers "a new route around the Salik toll" and according to the RTA quoted in Gulf News it will "help to reduce traffic jams by 37% on Maktoum Bridge."

The already choked Maktoum Bridge is taking more traffic because Salik operates on Garhoud Bridge, so now some of that extra traffic has the Floating Bridge option.

But although Salik controversially operates seven days a week twenty-four hours a day, the Floating Bridge will only be open from 6am to 10pm.

There is no comment in the reports about the reason. I expect the 'journalists' did what 'journalists' in the UAE do, simply wrote down whatever they were told and didn't ask the obvious question.

Why?

On that subject there are more questions that I would have asked had I been there, too, relating to the claimed 37% reduction of traffic on Maktoum Bridge. That's old research, that percentage was reported when the floating bridge was announced.

The obvious, to me, questions are: As there is no commercial or political confidentiality involved, will the research be made available to the public? Has there been research to determine the extra traffic using Maktoum Bridge since the introduction of Salik? What is the revised figure for the percentage that will be diverted to the Floating Bridge?

But back to the main question - if the bridge is closed for maintenance I can understand it, but I don't think that can be the reason - surely it won't need maintenance every night?

So, the question is, why is it closed every night between 10pm and 6am?

Anyone?

If you'd like to read all about it and see the photos, Gulf News has the story here.

RTA heads must roll.

The mismanagement of the whole Salik system goes from bad to worse to utter chaos.

Apart from all the other well-discussed issues with the system chosen, the way it was implemented and the timing of its introduction, there are now daily reports of errors with the installation and management of the follow-up procedures.

We had many people reporting that they received no confirmation of their tag purchase, giving them their account number and PIN. On the other hand a lot of people reported receiving the same message from the RTA up to 135 times.

Then we had people complaining that they were being charged a toll even though they hadn't used the toll road.

One of them reported to Gulf News that he then ran into the typical Dubai customer service wall. He managed to get through to the help-line and was told to go in person to the Rashidiya Salik office - but as it's only open when he's working he couldn't go there to sort out his problem.

Most other people said they simply couldn't get through to the help-line.

An RTA spokeswoman told Gulf News:

"It is a new system and maybe there are some people who have received wrong SMSs for the credit they have.

We are trying to update the system and to make the improvements."

A brand new system needs updating and improving! A ridiculous thought I know, but maybe testing it in advance would have been a sensible idea.

To demonstrate yet more incompetence from the RTA, other motorists couldn't put more money into their Salik accounts however hard they tried.

Frustrated drivers called 7Days to say that petrol stations were unable to help them because they'd run out of receipts or the system had broken down. That was denied by the RTA but that hardly helped the motorists or solved the problem.

No point trying to top-up online of course, the recharge system isn't up and running yet. So even if you can get onto the website it's no help. A spokesperson for the RTA said: "The online recharge system is expected to be up soon. That was ten days after they started charging the toll.

I know, I know. You'd expect a basically efficient organisation to have all these things in place before they put the product in the marketplace, but this is the RTA we're talking about.

Today even more faults in the system are reported. Text messages are saying things like 'the account balance is Dh478 which is insufficient and funds must be added immediately to avoid violation fines.' Others show incorrect balances, either more or less than the correct figure. The website isn't working, the help-line is constantly busy.

All-in-all, a disaster.

It was the RTA who chose July 1st as the date to introduce the toll. With the breathtaking incompetence we've come to expect from them they obviously chose a date that was far too early even for their own systems to be in place and tested.

The incompetence is causing huge numbers of enquiries, the SMS system is faulty, the accounting system is faulty, the help-line is constantly unavailable because it's understaffed, the website isn't ready yet, the offices have inconvenient timings.

Why aren't the people responsible being held accountable?

Here are the Gulf News stories in detail:
Motorists charged toll without using gate.
More motorists report faults in toll system.

Chaos is not the RTA's fault.

For months before it was introduced, many of us said that Salik would create problems.

The wrong toll system was selected, management of it was inept, the 24/7 toll timings were wrong, the tollgate locations were wrong, it was introduced before the alternative roads & bridges and the Metro were ready, incomplete information was given to us.

Well, the results were as we predicted. But we were obviously wrong to think the RTA was in any way to blame. Here's part of their advertisement in today's Gulf News:



See, nothing to do with the RTA. It's all down to drivers not being ready or not being able to understand what to do.

And to 'delays in opening alternative roads'. The RTA is in charge of the alternative roads. They knew, as we all did, the bloody roads & bridges were nowhere near ready. But delay the start of Salik until alternatives were ready? Not a chance with the arrogant RTA.

Then to the Hotline - and the website.

The fault is not that they didn't get it right. Like having enough tags available in time at enough outlets. Like explaining what it was all about. Like texting confirmation of account details. You know, stuff that would mean people didn't have to contact them.

Oh no, that isn't the problem. Nor is not having enough people in the call centres, not having an efficient system of texting in place. Or sending 135 identical texts to people, as detailed in letters to the papers.

No, no. None of that is the problem. The problem is 'the volume of calls to the hotline'. Our fault again.

So 'be patient and keep trying' the hotline, hanging on for hours. Or 'refer to the website'. That's been impossible to get into too.


The taxi stupidity.

By the way, a further chaos-causing decision has appeared that I wasn't clear about before. Taxis have to pay the toll and the toll cap of Dh24 a day does not apply to them. If they don't have a passenger the poor driver has to pay the Dh4 every time he passes a tollgate. So the alternative routes are clogged even more with empty taxis.

Morons.

One of the worst-hit areas is Al Barsha and the flyover from Al Sufouh. And here's the sort of driving we have to contend with when we're stuck in the jams. Late-morning last week, fifty minutes to get from the ramp of the flyover from Al Sufouh to Lulu Hypermarket in Al Barsha. That would be less than 2 kilometres I would think.

Cars behind me decided to push onto the hard shoulder onto the adjoining slip road...




...then across the grass, around behind the truck illegally parked in the middle of the junction, to try to force their way back into the traffic less than fifty metres further on.



Arrogant, ignorant morons.

Salik's working well then.

According to the RTA salik was going to reduce traffic on Sheikh Zayed Road by 25%.

It has, by more than that I'd say, so I'm sure they'll claim it's a great success.

What will probably be ignored by them is the fact that every other alternative road is jammed solid, as predicted by just about all of us. All of us who, according to the RTA, don't know what we're talking about as we have no experience in traffic flow, unlike the RTA which does know what it's doing.

Oh yes. The evidence about whether they know what they're doing or not is all around us isn't it.

Remember the Gulf News item back in May? Headline was "Authority dispels fears of clogged Dubai roads" and it went on to quote Engineer Maitha Obaid Bin Udai, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Traffic and Roads Agency at the RTA, as saying that the toll system would not create traffic congestion. The full story is here.

That was in response to Brigadier Mohammad Saif Al Zafein, Director, General Department of Traffic, Dubai Police, saying the new road toll system will clog traffic rather than ease it. That story is here.

The Brigadier was right, we were right, the RTA got it wrong yet again. Inevitable isn't it.

A nice little Salik scam.

I came across an interesting detail with Salik today.

We went to have a look at the newly-opened Lulu Hypermarket in Al Barsha, just behind Mall of the Emirates. There are no signs, so you take a guess where to go - eventually I found it.

After we'd finished looking around we headed back to Dubai Marina. Again I had to guess the route, got back into MoE, around the flyover signed to Umm Suqeim and took the far left turnoff onto Sheikh Zayed Road headed towards Jebel Ali.

Less than 100 metres and I passed under the tollgate, the one that charges you when you leave the freeway toll section. Had it been tomorrow I'd have paid Dh4 to travel less than 100 metres on SZR.

There were no signs to warn of the tollgate, so plenty of people are going to get caught.

RTA proves its incompetence, again.

Just how long will the RTA be allowed to continue demonstrating its breathtaking incompetence before heads roll?

The Salik kits, the advertisements, the TV commercials have all been absolutely clear - the sticker must be placed "1 cm below the rearview mirror post".



In the kit, the booklet has the rider: "In certain vehicles, you may need to install the tag in a special location". It tells you to go to the Salik website. You try - I've been trying for two days and "cannot find server" is all I get.


Now, just two days before the toll is due to begin, they issue a list of the vehicles which must have the tag in a special location, as published in Gulf News.



I wonder how many owners of those vehicles have already done as instructed and placed the tag 1 cm below the rearview mirror post. The tags won't work if they're removed, so they'll have to buy another one.

All the time they've had to think this thing through, to get the information to us, and they leave this critical information until a few hours before start-up.

Gulf News says: "(RTA) has produced a list of vehicles that require a special installation for Salik tags which will be operational on Sunday, July 1.

The RTA also advised motorists to go through the details attached with the Salik welcome kit and read the instructions to install the tag on the car windshield"

It's mind-boggling.


The Gulf News story is here.

Salik is not designed to ease congestion.

For whatever reason and in spite of the RTA's pronouncements on the subject, the new toll system is not designed to ease traffic on the stretch of Sheikh Zayed Road between the tollgates.

I'm not going to voice an opinion, I'll simply point out the facts.

1/. Vehicles can drive on the section at any point between the tollgates without charge.

2/. Signs outside the toll section direct traffic onto it, for example in Bur Dubai, Jumeirah, Jebel Ali.

3/. Signs on SZR within the toll section tell drivers how to avoid the toll by taking a minor detour around the tollgates.

Our esteemed RTA says the toll is for no other reason than to divert 25% of the traffic from the toll stretch of SZR. The facts say otherwise.

So is the toll a revenue-raising exercise, a tax that dare not speak its name? An example of incompetence by the RTA? An example of their inability to think things through properly?

Petitions work? Gimme a break!

There's an online petition complaining that salik is not a good idea, at least for the time being. It's not very clear but I assume it's asking the RTA to postpone the July 1st start-date.

What amuses me is that people, many people, are claiming that the earlier on-line petition to 'save our beach' was hugely successful and was the main reason Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid ordered the work to stop. They think the latest one will have the same effect.

What arrogance. What self-importance. What a dream world they live in.

Sheikh Mohammed will do what he believes is the right thing for Dubai, for its future growth and prosperity. You can bet your life he will not be swayed from that by the complaints of a few hundred transient expats, here for a short period then back to their home countries.

If he thought it was in Dubai's best interests to develop the beach it would have gone ahead. He didn't, it didn't.

The petition would have had no influence on the decision.

If he cancells or postpones salik at this late stage it will be because he has the advice of experts such as Brig. Mohammad Saif Al Zafein, Director of Dubai Police's Traffic Department, who is vocally opposed to the plan.

Once again, a petition by a few expats will not influence government policy. Sign it by all means, blog about it - I do endlessly, write to the papers about it, be vocal about it. But don't think for one moment that if the government thinks it's the right thing to do you will be able to reverse the decision.

And if it is reversed, please don't claim credit for it, like the beach petitioners and their supporters.

The salik petition is here.

Salik becomes clear.

Don't worry about the salik toll system, I've just realised that it's all a joke, a Monty Python script.

On July 1st the RTA will say whatever the Gulf's equivalent of 'April Fool' is and we'll all have a good laugh at how they fooled us.

It has to be, surely. It can't be for real, it's just all so incredibly stupid. Even for the RTA.

I've just driven from Bur Dubai, following the signs to Jebel Ali/Abu Dhabi which directed me onto Sheikh Zayed Road. You know, the toll-zone stretch that they say salik will clear of 25% of its traffic.

Then at Al Barsha I'm confronted by an overhead tag-reader...so I'm directed to drive on the road, then have to pay to get off it!

Look, I've done a quick sketch of the toll gate...




Having directed us onto the stretch they're trying to keep us off, they then give us directions to exits that help us avoid the tollgate.

So at Exit 39 Al Barsha you turn off SZR, go a very short distance and come back onto SZR the other side of the tollgate.

Of course, if you come all the way down the toll stretch from Garhoud to Al Barsha you don't pay Dh4 as is claimed..."the toll will be Dh4"...but Dh4 to get on and another Dh4 when you get off.

I told you, it's a Monty Python script.

I do hope Sheikh Mohammed gets back from his very successful trip to Royal Ascot in time to stop this nonsense.


My earlier piece on the toll fiasco which talks about some of the other problems.

'You can believe me, I'm from the RTA'

"Authority dispels fears of clogged Dubai roads."

Oh, that's OK then, we can all relax and drive about the place without any problems.

No more 'can't go there, the traffic's too bad' mutterings from us.

Want to go to dinner in Deira when you live in Dubai Marina? It's not going to be a problem any more, obviously.

Who tells us this? None other than Engineer Maitha Obaid Bin Udai, who as we all know is in a position to know these things. She is indeed the Chief Executive Officer, Traffic & Roads Agency at our beloved RTA.

The eagerly-anticipated Salik road toll stuff up system is going to reduce traffic on the short section of SZR that it covers by 25%, encouraging us to "use alternative roads and public transport."

Public transport?


Maitha Obaid Bin Udai with Salik sticker.
Photo: Gulf News

Maitha says the toll will not create traffic congestion (contradicting the Chief of Traffic Police and the entire motoring public of Dubai). Even though it starts to operate on July 1st it somehow links in with the future - 'the expected opening of the floating bridge, the new (2008) Al Garhoud Bridge, the widening (when?) of Emirates Road'.

And "...the floating bridge will reduce traffic on Maktoum Bridge by 37%."

Ummmm...the toll on Garhoud Bridge will send more traffic to Maktoum bridge. That's the whole idea of it, to get traffic off Garhoud.

My head hurts.

Gulf News report: Salik is coming.

Police chief vs RTA (cont'd).

It's good to see that Dubai's chief of Traffic Police is unrelenting on exposing and criticising the mismanagement of the RTA. He talks a lot of sense, obviously knows his job very well and, unusually in this region, does not hesitate to express criticism of things he believes to be wrong.

Brigadier Mohammed Saif Al Zafein is again attacking the ridiculous toll road decisions taken by the RTA, and has added the telling statement that: "The RT officials didn't approach the traffic department for consultation or advice in our speciality, which is road safety and traffic flow. We learnt about it from the media."

His criticism of the new toll goes into quite some detail of its likely effects, none of them positive. Drivers will simply skip around the two toll reader points, we don't yet have a fully functioning road system or public transport network, alternative roads can't take the planned extra diveted traffic. "...if they go ahead with it, it will negatively impact motorists and traffic accidents will increase." he said.

Its satisfying to have someone of the Brigadier's position highlighting some of the deficiencies of the RTA. I've been doing that for a long time (my label 'mismanagement' will take you to the posts) but no-one in a position of power even knows about this blog, let alone reads it, so it's no more than me getting frustrated and letting off steam. The Brigadier, on the other hand, is in a powerful position, the media reports what he says and I'm sure he has wasta - whether he or the RTA has more is the key question.

The Gulf News report is here.

RTA - the toll, speed limits, stuff-ups.

My least favourite organisation, the appallingly incompetent Roads & Traffic Authority (RTA) is in the news again.

Just scroll down to my last couple of posts on the Sheikh Zayed Road toll and on minimum speed limits. (Samuraisam has made some interesting comments on the toll by the way).

Now today there's news in Emirates Today, my least favourite newspaper, that after the Director of Dubai Police's Traffic Department pointed out that it was a 'grave mistake', the RTA is reconsidering its earlier decision to set the minimum speed on highways at 60kph.

As we've come to expect from the RTA, that was another decision made without thinking it through. Knee-jerk instant and inapropropriate decisions are being made, which have to be changed later.

The management of the toll, as I've been saying, is another one.

Now they've added to their mistakes by appointing Emarat to handle the card sales and by the compressed time frame. The report in Gulf News says:

"According to the agreement, the RTA will provide the Salik cards and the application forms to Emarat. The RTA will train some of Emarat's employees on Salik's system and provide them with the required technical support in order to cope with any technical defects in the users' service system."

So we're going to have 'some' petrol station employees trained on the system and able to 'cope with any technical defects'.

Yeah, right.

According to the RTA's website, there were 740,000 vehicles registered in Dubai in 2006. A lot of them are going to need Salik stickers. The kits go on sale on June 15 and the toll starts on July 1. Can you imagine the chaos in those two weeks!

But then chaos is the name of the game whenever the RTA is involved.

RTA gets it wrong yet again.

It was almost inevitable. A decision to be made by the Roads & Transport Authority and they made the wrong one.

In an endless saga of breathtakingly inept management they've got the new toll system competely wrong.

And it isn't only me saying it.

There are two issues with the toll. One is whether a toll will improve traffic flow, whether it's simply another of our taxes-by-another-name and what percentage it will add to inflation. That it will add something to inflation is not at issue, the argument is how many percent.

But it seems that the toll will go ahead regardless - unless Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid vetoes it - so the real issue now is implementation and management.

They've named it Salik, meaning open or clear in Arabic, but it's far from clear what their rationale is. As usual with the RTA it's all vague, wooly thinking.

Oh, and as usual they're leaving it all to the last minute. We're a mere 60 days from start-up and they're still talking to industry bodies, still gathering information, still 'making final decisions', still not sure of the details.

Payment model

They have hundreds of toll systems around the world to research and evaluate in terms of Dubai's needs. You'd have to assume they did that.

They had many different payment models to choose from - and as we've come to expect from the RTA they chose the wrong one.

Hire car companies, fleet operators, car dealers are all saying the same thing, as will all we drivers - the payment model is wrong.

Motorists will buy a stick-on tag which is to be fixed to the car's windscreen, behind the rear-view mirror is being recommended. Salik starter kits at Dh100 will be on sale for the toll which is due to begin on July 1. Dh50 is for 'an initial cost for the account' (sounds like a tax to me) and Dh50 is credit against toll trips. Overhead devices will automatically deduct Dh4 per pass-through.

The problem with the system they've chosen is that the tag belongs to the vehicle, not the person. Their website says "With no battery or moving parts, it should last the life of your windshield...Your Salik tag must be affixed to your windshield to operate properly and cannot be removed without damaging the tag. You should have a Salik tag for each of your vehicles."

So if you have to change your windshield - buy another tag.Own two cars - you have to buy two tags. Sell your car - the tag goes with it. (Think about that for car hire fleets selling hundreds of cars a year). All you can do is deactivate the tag.

It goes without saying that the tag should belong to the person, not the vehicle. As they have in Singapore we should have a little plastic holder that's fixed to the windshield, the payment card slots into it, the overhead device reads the card. Use your second car, you put the card into its holder. Sell the car, you still have your card. Replace the windshield, you still have your card.

Improved traffic flow?

Then there's the toll road itself. It's actually only a small section of Sheikh Zayed Road, the most congested section to be fair. There will be two overhead devices, one at Garhoud Bridge the other by Mall of the Emirates at Interchange 4.

Only if the vehicle passes under the reader will a toll be charged. Join the same section of road a little further down and there's no charge. It's not hard to visualise vehicles blasting in from Jebel Ali, off at interchange 4.5 (or whatever it's going to be called) or onto a service road, skip round the overhead gantry and back onto SZR the other side. That hardly eases traffic flow does it!

Join the toll section of SZR anywhere but under one of the two overhead readers and it's free.

Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid has already warned the RTA about their performance, as I posted here. They've made and continue to make such a mess of what they're doing that it's long overdue for a large clean-out of management and designers who urgently need to be replaced by competent people with the ability to actually do the job properly.

I originally posted about the stupidity of the toll system they've come up with all the way back in November, here.