Professional Documents
Culture Documents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This company project in RTA Dubai was wonderful chance for me to know and explore Dubai very closely and
one big chance to increase my insight in the world of hard work, to manage team and to operate the very
effectively and to enhance my understanding of the Dubai field plus the travelers behavior. This was an
experience, which has acquainted me to the working environment in a world class government part.
My sincere gratitude to my college mentor Dr. Vimi Jham, Professor (Marketing, IMT Dubai) for
providing with his insights in the course of this project.
As a special mention of Mr. Robair Boctor, General Manager of Mystery shoppers company for
recruiting me with his valuable advice and sharing his experiences. The successful completion of this project
would not have been possible without his constant guidance. I would like mention my gratitude towards my
project guide, Ms. Seema Sayed, Account Manager, whose enthusiastic support was always present
throughout this internship.
I would also thank my parents, my team in this project and co-workers who supported me throughout the
project.
- Aamir Ansari
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
I got this great opportunity to add RTA Dubai experience in my CV through a message from a job screening
agency for a 2 months job in Mystery Shoppers Company for this particular job. Through this job I got a
wonderful chance to explore the whole Dubai, which will be very useful for those guys who want to
work in Dubai in future and I am one of them.
For RTA the main reason behind the survey was to know about the travelers mode of transport used by them
mostly and their experience and most important to know about their travelling routes which they use on daily
basis.
RTA, it mostly appoints i4 Research Company for the market research and then next i4 research then
contacted mystery shoppers in which I was working. In mystery shoppers there were three teams, all the three
teams working in different areas and RTA has provided us netbook in which we have record the data, there
was a software built up in Microsoft excel to collect the data.
In first half of my company project I was as the team member but after my good performance they promoted
as the team leader. In all the three teams there were 12 members each. On the field my work was to guide my
team members to provide geo codes of the area and also to make a separate file for the locals and
expatriates. On off field my work was to handover the collected to the manager and then my manager forward
this data to the RTA.
CONTENTS
Since Dubai is one of the fastest growing cities in today's world, making the provision of high quality
infrastructure facilities absolutely imperative, and since providing an advanced transport network for the
people of Dubai has been high on the governments agenda, which is evident from its initiatives to enhance
the public transport facilities and improve roads across the emirate to make travel safer and smoother, the
Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) was formed by the decree number 17 for the year 2005. Initially started
as Dubai transport in 1998, the government of Dubai revamped the system to unify its services under the
brand name "RTA" in 2006, in order to accommodate the metro and other facilities under one name. RTA is
responsible for planning and providing the requirements of transport, roads & traffic in the Emirate of Dubai,
and between Dubai and other Emirates of the UAE, neighboring countries in order to provide an effective & an
integrated transport system capable of achieving Dubai's vision & serving the vital interests of the Emirate.
Dubai has a very large bus system run by the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA). The bus system has 193
routes on weekdays and transports over 30 million people weekly. The Public Transport bus system is large
and advanced but not large enough to accommodate the volume of people who use it. This means that in busy
areas, it is common that at the end of the day commuters may have to wait more than an hour before they
can board a bus. Unfortunately, the number of buses does not increase with the same rate as the amount of
passengers, which makes this problem worse as time progresses.
TRANSPORTS PROVIDING BY RTA DUBAI:
Bus
Taxi
Metro
Tram
Water taxi
Air travel
I4 research based in Al Shatha Tower Dubai Media City is a shopper behavior research agency based in
Dubai and covering the Qatar and KSA markets. I4 research conduct cost-effective in-store filming and eye
tracking studies to generate actionable insights for consumer product manufacturers, retailers, F&B
outlets etc.
I4 research is expertise in dealing with survey clients. Type of information which this company can provide:
Travel survey
Queue Analysis
POS interaction
This project made me to learn about the Dubai transport field and the behavior of people who daily use
RTA transport. With the advancement in the project, the actual team work and the decision making were
understood and applied.
Objectives to be achieved through these methods:
To map the profile of the target segment as per the Income, marital status and size of the family.
o In this project surveyors has to enter the data in the software installed in the Microsoft
Excel which asks about the basic information about the household members and their
contact number so that RTA can verify randomly that the survey is fake or genuine.
Devise the expansion plan in the areas which are facing travelling problems.
o Another important objective was to find out the passengers problems which they are facing
daily like traffic problems, lesser bus stops etc. by doing this survey RTA will study the data
and can come up with more routes and more facilities.
To make good relation with passengers. Doing survey and to know about the passengers problems
and to getting their advice to make service good is better option to be in relation with the
passengers. In this survey RTA has also given some more options to passengers like water taxi and
bus rapid transit. Till now RTA didnt introduce these services across the Dubai but through this
survey they can get an idea about how many passengers like these two new options to travel.
The contact form contains the information about the time and the number of visits.
C
Contact form
Question
Nr
Name
C2
HHID
Field
Description
C8
Visit Nr
C9
Date(dd/mm/yyyy)
C10
Arrival Time
C11
Departure Time
C12
Result
C13
Note
Result
Code Description
Successful interview
Partial interview
Nobody at home
Refused
Non residential
Vacant/Demolished
(Insufficient address)
(7)
(not applicable)
New HH
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The household form contains the information about the building where the survey is being done and
households contact information, number of family members and number of kids below 6 years old
Household form
Question
Field
Description
Nr
Name
H-A
Number of floors
in building
H-B
Number of
dwellings in
you are unsure then ask the guard or the head of the
building
H-C
Name of head
of household
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Household form
Question
Nr
Name
H-D
Phone
Field
Description
H-E
H1
People living
permanently in
the household
Related or unrelated.
Including drivers.
A driver is employed by the household. His task
is to drive other household members by car on
demand
People
present
during first
visit
H3
Dwelling unit
tenure
Household form
Question
Field
Description
Nr
Name
H4
Number of
motor vehicles
in the
household
H5
Number of
bicycles in the
household
H6
Motor vehicles
in detail
vehicles stated.
Enter type of vehicle
Enter owner of vehicle
13
H7
H8
Distance to
nearest public
transport stop
Household income
H9
Residence type
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Person form
Question
Nr
Name
P1
Name
Field
Description
P2
Household status
P3
Nationality
P4
Gender
P5
Age
one acquired.
Enter the age for each person as of the
report day (completed age years)
P6a
Main occupation
other categories)
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Person form
Question
Nr
Name
P6b
Occupation-sector
Field
Description
P6c
Occupation-level
P7
NOL card
P8
Driving license
P9
Car availability
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T1
Nr
Name
Report day
Field
Description
Day type
as on in writing
If the person didnt leave from home on the report day and the reason has been
entered the interview for this person is terminated
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T2
Trip form
Question
Nr
Field
Description
Name
18
T2
Trip form
Question
Nr
Field
Description
Name
Walk-only
trip Enter
walk time
Walk legs in multi-mode trips
Add and enter duration of all walk legs for that trip
regardless of individual walk leg duration
All walk times to be entered in full minutes
T2-9 Tickets
19
T2-10 Cost
Select all SALIK gates which were passed on the car trip
gates
20
T2
Trip form
Question
Nr
Field
Description
Name
T2-13 Car parkingType Enter the type of car park in gat the trip destination
Valet parking is coded Onsite (either free or charged
depending on the actual service)
T2-14 Car
parking
Search time
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The aim of the SP survey part is to obtain information about the respondents travel behavior under
changed conditions: When do respondents switch from the actual mode to another?
This is achieved by What if games with focus on transport modes ; also completely new modes
are tested
Data from SP will enable RTA to derive parameters which are filled in the transport model. The
transport model can then help test and assess future scenarios and measures.
Each respondent is presented 10cards with 3 options of transport modes. The characteristics of the
modes change systematically. The respondent must choose one option on each card
Verify the respondents answers in case he always chooses the same mode
Public bus
Metro
Water transport.
Car, taxi, public bus, and the metro are common, well-known options. This is not the case for Bus rapid
transit (BRT) and the specific form of water transport used for the SP.
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Exposure to i4 Research Company: The interaction with the i4 research company had helped me to
understand the practical intricacies and how systematically they approach to tackle them.
Understanding of ISP (Interactive Sales presentation): In this survey job we had to sell our service and we
had to convince household members to give their personal and basic travelling information. This helped
me to learn how to interact with customers during a survey pitch. It gave an exposure to the queries raised
by survey respondents.
Understanding the importance of market research: This company project also helped me to learn the
practical significance of market research and its relevance to the business world. To introduce something,
first the forecasting of the market is very important to know if the service and product are going to launch
is useful or not for the recent date.
In first half of this project my work was there as a team member, as a team member I had to go on field
and collect data from the given area, daily target was there according to the area which was minimum to
interview 20 people. After every 1 hour I had to give information of the collected data to my team leader.
After some days my manager gave me the team leader position to lead and guide the team. I learnt how to
read the person face and feeling during the interview like: if the person is ready to give interview or not
and how to take full information from the household person.
After finishing the survey I have to handover the Netbook to my team leader because team members were
not allowed to take Netbooks home and team members were also not allowed to keep any information
related to any household because of some security reasons.
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LIMITATIONS
It is true that the environment was good but still they lacked in something for which I want to give some
recommendations to them some of these are following:
Lack of Team leaders: The Company provided Netbooks to feed the collected data, for each survey
interviewer use Google map coordinates (geocode). If the company had provided us internet
facility then searching location would be easier and faster. On the other hand because of less team
leader and more team members there was problem in dealing with many people at the same time.
Distance & Time: As we had to cover whole Dubai there had been far way places like Jebel Ali, The
Greens and Discovery Garden which took too much of time in traffic with less time to be spent on
the field. For this we had to most of the times start early in the evening and come back late. But
this all was normalized with the fact that it gave us an opportunity to visit far off locations at Dubai.
Communication: communication had been a great barrier in achieving our task. As we were not
able to converse in languages like Arabic, Bangla and Malyali it sometimes created a fussy situation
before us. We are thankful to the fellow members who were able to understand local language
which helped us out of this situation by acting as a translator at many instances.
Right feedback: Getting in the house of the person and get right thing out from his heart was a
important but little challenging task. It takes quite lots of efforts to make the interviewee at ease
and convince him to cooperate in the required manner. But trying to do this task helped us
improve our communication and analytical skills to get the information in the manner we wanted.
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RECOMMENDATIONS
Encourage competitiveness between team members: In an effort to bring further uniqueness, style and
a touch of competitive edge to the project, developers should be offered incentive and bonus. I think
in survey job the hard work of employee is more important to perform well in the survey project, so
bonus and incentive are best option to encourage employees to perform well. Staff is not motivated
towards the job, because there was no individual incentive. There should be some incentive for the top
performer.
Communication: process information and initiatives in both formal and informal settings, and followsup on assigned actions as required.
TRAINING:
Training is the major area of opportunity for all type of jobs. It is important for the survey job to be
trained in every aspect of field to make the survey with household person in the best way. The
following are some of the recommendations in this area:
a) Use of survey manual which is missing should be done more often.
b) All team members should have training sessions once is 10 days.
c) The field team leaders help should be taken to develop all the training plans and also for any
procedural change.
d) Corrective feedback should be given to the project manager on a regular basis by the team
leader.
e) Off the job training should also be encouraged.
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