Two of the top Dubai malls, Mall of the Emirates and Deira City Centre, will launch their brand new parking management system tomorrow (October 4).

As part of the new campaign, parking will be free all day on Fridays, Saturdays and public holidays while the first four hours of parking will be free on weekdays.

The parking management system was introduced by the malls in conjunction with the launch of Dubai Metro in order to maintain a balance between giving their customers easy access to parking and deterring park and ride Metro users.

Shahram Shamsaee, senior vice-president – shopping malls at Majid Al Futtaim Properties, said that the impact of the first few days of the Dubai Metro has been very encouraging for both malls and a sign that it will become the future backbone of transportation in the city.

“The average traffic coming into the Mall of the Emirates Station is 12,000 per day and at Deira City Centre 5,000,” Shamsaee explained.

“The way the whole city has embraced the Dubai Metro with open arms is certainly better than initially expected. Numbers coming out of the RTA are proof to that. With this rising popularity of the Metro, it has now become imperative for us to have a parking management system in place that safe guards mall parking spaces for our customers.”

“We’re a business that puts our customers first. That is why we introduced the month’s free trial period to ensure our visitors became accustomed to the system and gave us their feedback. In fact, it was this dialogue that led us to introduce the free parking at weekends and extended free time during the week,” Shamsaee added.

“We would like to thank our customers’ for their cooperation and feedback during the trial period. This system has been put in place for their comfort and convenience so they have ample parking spaces available and to deter any possible park and ride Metro users.”

During the introduction to the fully operational system, over 60 parking crews and traffic marshals will be advising customers at the mall entry points on where to validate their tickets, said a statement. – TradeArabia News Service