Palm Jumeirah Monorail is a train line specifically designed to connect Palm Jumeirah with the city to make the transportation from and to the island much easier. According to the further plans, Palm Jumeirah Monorail will soon have connections to the Red Line of the Metro to make public transportation this way even more organized.
Needless to say, that next to the Dubai Metro, Palm Jumeirah Monorail is the very first of its kind, all over the Middle Eastern region. Now, its main role is to connect the enormous Atlantis, The Palm resort located on the Palm Jumeirah Island with the rest of the city. More stations will be included soon, mainly the one, which will connect it with the Dubai metro.
Palm Jumeirah is currently the one and only functioning artificial island of its kind, with the shape of a date palm tree. Almost everyone has heard of these islands before. Palm Jumeirah is the smallest in the trilogy of palm islands. Palm Deira and a Palm Jebel Ali are under construction but due to the financial crisis, it is still unsure when they will start operating. Palm Deira, the last in the trilogy will be ten times bigger than the original Palm Jumeirah. There is still not much information whether the same monorail would be built on the other islands too, but the idea of monorail is definitely great and very pioneering in the Middle Eastern area.
Palm Jumeirah mainly has living areas on its island, altogether 7 branches of the palm tree and the huge Atlantis resort, on the outer circle, which makes it hard to reach. There have been plans of several other hotels as well, but they have become unsure because of the financial crisis. If more hotels are built on the island, then the importance of Jumeirah Monorail will grow drastically. The transportation in these areas is not easy, due to the lack of place on the branches. The main road is quite huge, but still, not enough to serve the passengers, especially the hotel guests, who might not want to rent a car, but need a goods shuttle–way of transportation to carry them back and forth.
The Hitachi designed the entire Palm Jumeirah Monorail and used the Japanese system all around. Japanese have helped in the building of the whole monorail system, including the design and making of the cars themselves. The Palm Jumeirah Monorail still does not serve big number of passengers, due to the still-low traffic of the area, and the fact it only operates with two stations. However, according to its developers, it will play a main role in the transportation to and from the artificial island.
Palm Jumeirah Monorail had its first openings in 2009 with approximately a year’s delay. The year 2008 was spent with testing. Monorail soon will have a good choice to become a worthy part of Dubai’s public transportation. Palm Jumeirah is something to try while in Dubai, as it is the best, cheapest and fastest way to get to the Aquaventure Theme Park inside the Atlantis resort.
