On 1 July 2007 Dubai was an early implementer of what might have been seen as urban corridor road pricing, if it had applied pricing based on time and location. At the time it was Singapore, London and Stockholm that were the predecessors (although arguably Norway's toll rings were as well), with Dubai suddenly being the leader in the Middle East for tolling existing roads.
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| Map of Salik toll points |
Salik was introduced as a corridor tolling scheme on major highways, not to pay for their construction or maintenance, but to raise revenue and improve traffic management. It was introduced using sticker tag toll technology, but the blunt pricing structure applied (with flat rate tolls on almost all routes) gave the strong impression that the Dubai Government bought the technology rather than a policy.
It was set up as a company to be the toll operator for the Emirate, generating revenues for shareholders. It is 75% owned by the Dubai Emirate sovereign wealth fund - Dubai Investment Fund. The remainder are held by private shareholders, as Salik is listed on the Dubai Stock Exchange.
There was a single rate for passing all toll points of AED4 (US$1.09) per passage with a cap of AED24 (US$6.54) until 2013 when the cap was lifted.
The key criticism of Salik was that it didn't do much for congestion, but rather saw traffic diverted onto parallel uncharged roads. Taxis were exempt from 2007 until 2013, which suppressed the impacts of pricing. When it was introduced, the Dubai Road Transport Authority reported a 25% reduction of traffic at one of the first charging points, with a 50% reduction in travel time, and another charging point reportedly had a 45% reduction in vehicle numbers. However, some polling indicated 70% of users were unhappy at the congestion diverted onto other routes. Although Dubai's recently built Metro had seen some trips (particularly taxi trips) shift mode, the impact overall has been minimal.
Salik has been expanded, with two new toll points added in 2024. Salik generated US$630 million in revenue in 2024. Detailed information on the system in 2024 is contained here.
That has changed substantially now.
On 31 January 2025, Salik became a congestion pricing based system with pricing that varies by time of day. As can be seen in the price schedule below it is now 50% higher in the AM and PM peak periods Monday to Saturday (with higher pricing during some periods in Ramadan), with no tolls 0100-0600.
The new time of use based pricing is expected to increase revenues by between US$16m- US$30m per annum. It will be interesting to see what results come from the peak charges, as there are few reports of the impacts so far.
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| Salik price schedule 2025 |
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