Dubai Loop: Elon Musk Announces Transport Project To Connect Key Areas

An ambitious project to connect Dubai's most densely populated areas will see the emirate partnering with Elon Musk. Spanning over 17 kilometers, the project will have 11 stations and will have the capacity to transport 20,000 passengers per hour.

The announcement of the project named 'Dubai Loop' came on Thursday, Day 3 of the World Governments Summit (WGS) 2025 during a session when Musk was speaking virtually with Omar Al Olama, UAE's Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications.

Later, Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence of the UAE, tweeted more information about the project, which he said would“revolutionise transportation” in the emirate. He said the city will continue to“redefine the future of transportation, both above and below ground” and set global benchmarks.

The project is part of a long-term plan to develop tunnel infrastructure across the emirate and will let travelers go directly to their destination with no stops in between. Traveling at speeds of up to 160 kmph, the loop will be powered by electric vehicles.

Speaking at WGS, AlOlama announced that Dubai Loop will“cover Dubai's most densely populated areas for people to go from point to point” while Musk compared it to a“wormhole”.

“Like, you just wormhole from one part of the city and boom you're out in another part of the city,” he said. "I think once people try it out, they will think this is really cool.” He also said that once begun, the loop system is going to seem like an obvious choice of transport to connect busy areas in retrospect.

AlOlama also thanked Musk for the partnership.“We look forward to the partnership and we're going to join the first trip, the first pod,” he said.

During the session, Musk spoke about The Boring Company and its efforts to build safe, fast, and low-cost tunnels across cities to solve traffic and transform cities.

Speaking about how the company has build tunnels across Los Angeles, Musk explained why it was such a great idea.“What's really useful about tunnels is alleviating traffic in congested areas,” he said.“In Las Vegas, we're busy connecting the whole city with all the big hotels, the convention center and the airport.”

He explained that the alternative to building tunnels is to use the airsapce for flying taxis or helicopters.“But the challenge with doing is that they tend to be very noisy and they generate a lot of wind force,” he said.“And flying things tend to crash once in a while. If you have bad weather, let's say there's a blizzard or a sandstorm, nobody can fly. So transport shuts down. On the other hand, none of these problems exist with underground travel.”

He also highlighted how tunnels were safe in extreme situations like an earthquake.

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