# How bad is it ? Commute from Al Hamra in RAK to Dubai



## samnajar (May 2, 2016)

Hi All,

We are about to move to Al Hamra in Ras Al Khaimah from Australia where my wife will start a new job. When I research jobs it looks like most of the jobs are in Dubai , I work in IT, I heard a lot about the heavy traffic between Sharjah and Dubai. The last thing I want is to spend most of the day commuting rather than with the children.

Do you have to pass by Sharjah from RAK to Dubai? on the map I can see Emirates Road bypassing Sharjah (not sure)
Do you have to move very early from home to beat the traffic ? how early.
In general I am happy for 1 hour commute time even more if the car is moving but standing in slow traffic is not easy.

Thoughts will be highly appreciated


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## Stevesolar (Dec 21, 2012)

samnajar said:


> Hi All,
> 
> We are about to move to Al Hamra in Ras Al Khaimah from Australia where my wife will start a new job. When I research jobs it looks like most of the jobs are in Dubai , I work in IT, I heard a lot about the heavy traffic between Sharjah and Dubai. The last thing I want is to spend most of the day commuting rather than with the children.
> 
> ...


Hi,
Welcome to the forum.
Depending on which part of Dubai you find a job, the commute from RAK to Dubai would take anywhere between 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours in the morning and about 1 1/2 hours in the evening.
You would need to allow about 4 hours per day for the commute.
If you leave RAK before 5 am - the journey would take a little over an hour.
Traffic in Dubai starts to build up at 6am and rush "hour" lasts until after 9am
It is not a commute that I would relish on a daily basis.
Cheers.
Steve


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## Felixtoo2 (Jan 16, 2009)

Hi, I work at the Dubai Airport and have been commuting from Al Hamra for the last year and a half. 

The time it takes is totally dependant on the time of day and as I'm a shift worker I'm driving RAK-DXB at 04.30, 11.30 or 20.30 and DXB-RAK at 13.00, 22.00 or 06.00. I tend to drive fairly fast so it normally takes 45-55 mins from parked at home to parked at work and the trip to the Airport has only taken more than an hour three or four times but that's purely down to the times of day that I'm on the road and the Airport being to the North of Dubai. Best time I've done is 35 mins, worst time 3 1/2 hours but I'm not actually travelling into Dubai itself. 

There are really only two choices of route, E311or E611 and as Steve has said the southbound traffic after 05.30 on the 311 or 6am on 611 is a complete nightmare. If I want to be somewhere in Dubai at 8am i'd leave Al Hamra before 6am and for the trip back to RAK I'd want to be past Sharjah by 15.30 otherwise it could be 90mins due to about 5km of crawling along in first gear stop start queues. 

If I worked a normal office hours job there is no way I'd be commuting from RAK but for me the benefits of life up North are worth it and I love driving which helps.


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## Racing_Goats (Sep 5, 2015)

Although there's only a fraction of business based in RAK vs Dubai, there's probably also relatively fewer people applying for the jobs there - research the free zone authority and colleges, government organisations based in RAK you never know if there might be somethung suitable


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## sm105 (Jan 9, 2014)

Stevesolar said:


> the commute from RAK to Dubai would take anywhere between 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours in the morning and about 1 1/2 hours in the evening.


I do the Al Hamra to Dubai and vice versa run weekly and using E611 it takes me on average no more than 45 minutes from Al Hamra to DXB airport and around 1h20m to Jebel Ali (JAFZA). This is around 8-9am which is just past the peak time.

The return is a lot worse as the bottleneck at the Sharjah border is horrendous heading north in the evenings - regardless whether you use E11, E311 or E611. If you don't pass the Maliha Road junction before 1800hrs, you will be stuck an additional 30-90 minutes there. My worse drive has been 3.5 hours from JAFZA to Al Hamra, with 2 hours spent getting between Al Awir and Maliha Road.


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