The Community Life Transportation Services team is pleased to announce enhancements and improvements to the bus schedules for both the on-campus and to off campus services. These changes have been created after listening to community feedback and are designed to offer you extra convenience.
What’s new in the on-campus shuttle services
Effective Sunday, October 23, a new operation model will be in place for on-campus buses.
- Scheduled color-coded buses will be available from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on weekdays
- On-demand buses will be available from 6:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. on weekdays
- There will be no scheduled buses during weekends and school holidays of more than two weeks. The on-demand service is available from 6:30 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. during these periods.
The recent levels of on-demand service requests during working hours have created delays and unpredictable journey times for passengers. We hope that this new system will allow community members to plan their journey with confidence.
What’s new in the off-campus bus services
Off-campus buses are available to shopping malls, hospitals and Balad in Jeddah. There are also weekly buses to nearby locations such as KAEC and Thuwal. Many community members use these services to transfer to a taxi and visit nearby restaurants or attractions.
Morning shopping buses
Starting Tuesday, November 1, morning buses to Jeddah will be available. Please see details below.
- Red Sea Mall: every Monday at 8:00 a.m. from KAUST and return at 1:00 p.m.
- Mall of Arabia: every Tuesday at 8:00 a.m. from KAUST and return at 1:00 p.m.
Note: There will be no evening trips on these days.
Reduced Balad trips
The number of Balad trips will be reduced to two per week.
There will be buses on Thursdays and Fridays effective from November 1.
Coming soon
We are continuously working towards providing greener modes of transportation. In addition to shared transportation, electric golf carts and e-bikes, we will soon pilot the use of electric buses in the community.
For more details and to download the new maps and timetables, please visit the Transportation page.
(New schedules available from Sunday, October 23)
Regards,
Nabeel Masoudi
Director, Community Services
8 comments
Community Life and Traspontation Services, thank you for adding 2 buses to Jeddah, during day time .
Looking forward to see greener alternatives to the shared transportation – our KAUST Buses! Thank you for working on that.
I hope you add more trips to The City of the Prophet, peace be upon him.
Also, people are having issues booking trips to Makkah and Al-Madinah, and there seems to be problems with the app. People who cancel still have their names on the list, as reported by other passengers.
The routes for color coded on campus buses are modified. It looks really problematic for the people to go to building 18 or discovery squire. Actually there are no stoppage for the Building 18 (Oasis route) or it will take may be 1/2 hr from building 16 to reach building 18, which is really problematic. It will be good if they will replace the previous route for color coded on campus buses.
We highly appreciate your team efforts to offer us a new route. However, I would like to bring the following matter in your attention.
With new operation model, it take 23 minutes to travel from PALM to first stop at KAUST (BlD#16) which is about 1.5 km. It is because, the buses got to stop at the Tamimi and keep waiting there for 10 minutes before heading to KAUST. Therefore, the new operation model for PALM on-campus buses has created huge frustration among the residents in PALM.
As such, the route for PALM on-campus buses are urgently needed to be revised.
I really appreciate the great job and the efforts that Community Life team is doing to improve transportation. But it’s really necessary make 10 minutes stop at the Tamimi? Before in 15 minutes I was at home, now it takes 30 minutes. Can you please riduce the 10 minutes stop at the Tamimi? Thanks
Thanks for updating the scheduled bus! I appreciate it so much! But the current schedule obviously takes much longer time from home to working buildings and vice versa. There is a 10 minutes stop at Tamimi between oasis and building 16, which makes the commute longer than 20 minutes. It would be great if you can further modify it without the Tamimi 10-minute stop. Thanks for your time and effort!
Thank you all for your comments. We have forwarded it to the concerned team. Do note the best way to reach the teams directly is by filling out the feedback forms available on the Community Life website for each service.
https://communitylife.kaust.edu.sa/contact-us/Customer-Satisfaction-Surveys