Ibn Battuta Metro Station

Ibn Battuta Metro Station Overview

First and last train from Ibn Battuta Station

These times come from the official RTA timetable. For the exact minute on the day you travel, the RTA S'hail app is the live source.

Ibn Battuta Station opening hours and facilities

Ibn Battuta station keeps the standard RTA opening hours, the same right across the network:

• Monday to Thursday: 5:00 AM to 12:00 AM
• Friday: 5:00 AM to 1:00 AM
• Saturday: 5:00 AM to 12:00 AM
• Sunday: 8:00 AM to 12:00 AM

Ibn Battuta has the standard Dubai Metro facilities, confirmed in the official RTA passenger guide. The station is step-free, with lifts to all levels, tactile guidance paths, and dedicated wheelchair spaces on every train. Nol card machines and a ticket counter sit inside the concourse, alongside bilingual signage and information screens. Du Wi-Fi covers the network.

Every regular train carries three cabin types: Gold Class at one end, a Women and Children cabin with pink signage, and Standard cabins. Door pictograms on the platform show where each cabin stops. The station has at least one bus connection, dedicated Metro Police, CCTV throughout, and emergency call points on every platform and train.

Do I need to change trains for Ibn Battuta?

From the city, no. From Expo 2020, yes.

On 15 April 2024 RTA rebuilt the Red Line service pattern into two direct routes from Centrepoint, announced by Dubai Eye 103.8. Track 1 runs Centrepoint to Expo 2020 through The Gardens and Al Furjan. Track 2 runs Centrepoint to the Life Pharmacy end of the older branch, calling at National Paints, Ibn Battuta, Energy and Danube. Both trains share the same platform in the shared section from Centrepoint down to National Paints, so before boarding a southbound Red Line train from the city, look at the destination board on the front of the train. A Life Pharmacy service stops at Ibn Battuta. An Expo 2020 service takes the other branch.

Between Ibn Battuta and Expo 2020 the position is the opposite way round. There is no direct train between the two branch ends, so you travel back towards the city on a Centrepoint-bound service, alight at National Paints, and cross the platform for a Track 1 Expo 2020 train. Same paid area, no second Nol tap. Nothing else on the Red Line requires an in-branch change today.

Metro, mall and Abu Dhabi buses in one stop

Ibn Battuta is one of the few stations on the network that combines a mall with a dedicated enclosed Metro link and an intercity bus terminus in a single interchange.

The mall link is a two-storey enclosed walkway 210 metres long, opened in August 2016 by mall owner Nakheel to give Metro passengers a direct climate-controlled route into the mall, reported by Gulf Business at the opening. The walkway starts inside the Metro concourse and drops you inside the mall near the food-court end. That means the enclosed link, rather than the older outdoor route across the surface car park, is what most passengers use today, especially in summer.

The intercity bus link sits on the same side of the station. RTA’s E101 coach runs from Ibn Battuta Bus Station to Abu Dhabi Central Bus Station and back, roughly an eighty-six minute run, on a Nol card. For a traveller heading from anywhere on the Metro to Abu Dhabi, Yas Island or Saadiyat, Ibn Battuta is the natural transfer point: one Metro fare, one intercity fare, no taxi in between. The bus bay is a short covered walk from the Metro concourse.

Why Ibn Battuta Mall looks unlike any other Dubai mall

The mall shares its name with the 14th-century Moroccan traveller who journeyed further than any of his European contemporaries. Rather than a single themed floor, the whole 1.3 kilometre run of the mall is divided into six geographical courts, each modelled on a place Ibn Battuta visited: Andalusia, Tunisia, Egypt, Persia, India and China. Each court has its own architecture, ceiling art, tiling and central set-piece.

The India Court carries a working full-size replica of the al-Jazari elephant clock, a 12th-century mechanical timekeeper originally described in a manuscript that inspired the modern reproduction here. The China Court’s Chinese junk hangs from the ceiling and sits above a full pagoda; the Persia Court’s central dome is one of the largest in a shopping mall anywhere, with hand-painted geometric tiling; the Andalusia Court houses a small planetarium. Because the layout is linear rather than radial, walking end to end takes about twenty minutes without stopping, and the sequence of themed courts means the mall reads more as a walk through a set of built worlds than a conventional retail floor plan.

Fares from Ibn Battuta Station

Fares depend on how many zones your trip crosses, not how many stations you pass. A Silver Nol card costs AED 3 within one zone, AED 5 across two zones, and AED 7.50 for three or more zones, per the RTA Nol fares page. A personal Blue Nol card pays the same as Silver. Gold Class costs double: AED 6, 10 or 15 across the same bands.

Without a Nol card, the Red ticket is a separate, higher tariff of AED 4, 6 or 8.50 by zone band, and the blank ticket costs AED 2 to buy. Children aged five and under travel free, and travel is free for People of Determination.

Metro Stations Before and After Ibn Battuta Station

• National Paints (R38): The stop after Ibn Battuta on the Red Line going towards Centrepoint
• Energy (R40): The stop after Ibn Battuta on the Red Line going towards Life Pharmacy