Palm Jumeirah Monorail, Monorail line in Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Palm Jumeirah Monorail is a single elevated rail line that links the artificial island of Palm Jumeirah to the mainland in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Its white carriages with a blue stripe run over a concrete guideway supported by thick pillars, giving riders clear views of the island's buildings and shoreline along the way.
Construction started in March 2006 and the line carried its first passengers on 30 April 2009, making it the first monorail in the Middle East. Since 2010 the British company Serco has run day-to-day operations, and the intermediate stops were added gradually in July 2017 and November 2019.
The Al Ittihad Park stop gives direct access to a landscaped area where more than a hundred local tree and plant species grow along a running path. Riders heading to Palm Jumeirah Mall see the daily mix of residents shopping and visitors moving between hotels, which shows how the monorail serves both ordinary errands and sightseeing.
A ride from one end to the other takes around twenty minutes, with trains arriving more often during busy periods. Since the line is suspended at the moment for station work, check locally before heading out and expect a short walk from parking or the nearby tram stop when service resumes.
During its first week, the trains often ran nearly empty, with only around six hundred passengers a day despite space for forty thousand. The setup is driverless, but an attendant stays on board in case of trouble, much like the monorail used at Tokyo Disney Resort.
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