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HIS: This Day in History: 2009 – The Dubai Metro, the first urban train network in the Arabian Peninsula, is ceremonially inaugurated.

 HIS: This Day in History: 2009 – The Dubai Metro, the first urban train network in the Arabian Peninsula, is ceremonially inaugurated.

The Dubai Metro is a rapid transit rail network in the city of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The Red Line and Green Line are operational, with one more line being constructed. These first two lines run underground in the city center and on elevated viaducts elsewhere (elevated railway). All trains are fully automated and driverless, and, together with stations, are air conditioned with platform edge doors. Architecture firm Aedas designed the metro's 45 stations, two depots and operational control centers. The Al Ghurair Investment group were the metro's builders.

The first section of the Red Line, covering 10 stations, was ceremonially inaugurated at 9:09:09 pm on 9 September 2009, by Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Ruler of Dubai, with the line opening to the public at 6 am (UTC 04:00) on 10 September. The Dubai Metro is the first urban train network in the Arabian Peninsula and either the second in the Arab World (after the Cairo Metro) or the third (if the surface-level, limited-service Baghdad Metro is counted). A major expansion of the Red Line to add 15 kilometers of track and extend it from Ibn Battuta to the Expo 2020 site was announced in April 2015. The extension will increase 7 metro stations.

More than 110,000 people, or nearly 10 percent of Dubai's population, used the Metro in its first two days of operation. The Dubai Metro carried 10 million passengers from launch on 9 September 2009 to 9 February 2010 with 11 stations operational on the Red Line. Engineering consultancy Atkins provided full multidisciplinary design and management of the civil works on Dubai Metro.

Until 2016, the Dubai Metro was the world's longest driverless metro network with a route length of 75 kilometres (47 mi), as recognized by Guinness World Records in 2012. However, its total route length have since been surpassed by the fully automated driverless Vancouver SkyTrain and Singapore MRT. Nevertheless, the Red Line, at 52.1 kilometres (32.4 mi), remains the world's longest driverless single metro line.

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