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46 | The Edge

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ITS

Qatar’s

Qatar’s road fatality rate is more than triple the rate recorded in some of the best performing developed countries in the world. That said, the country has started to address the road safety and transport expansion issue more seriously with the introduction of an intelligent transport system (ITS). But Qatar still has a long way to go to make its roads future-ready, writes Syed Ameen Kader.

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48 | The Edge

T he recent economic evolution in some of the Gulf countries has resulted in unprecedented

growth in population and vehicle numbers – something that has changed the whole dynamic of road infrastructure in this region. Many Gulf countries are still struggling to deal with this rapid surge in vehicle numbers, and the result is seen in the high rate of road accidents that these countries record every year. According to available government data, 220 people died and 550 more suffered serious injuries due to road accidents between 2008 and 2010 in Qatar. In Dubai, 115 people lost their lives in 2014, whereas Qatar recorded 222 deaths in the same year. While compared globally, Qatar’s fatality rate stood at 13.7 road deaths in 2010, against a figure of below five in some of the best performing countries such as the United Kingdom, Sweden and the Netherlands (see table on page 49).

The World Health Organization’s global status report on road safety concludes that countries with high income generally have the lowest fatality rate (8.7) against middle-income countries (20.1). Ironically, Qatar, being the richest country in the world, with the highest per capita gross domestic product (GDP), ranks among middle-income countries when it comes to road fatality rate.

Qatar has a huge task in hand. It stands at the crossroads of deciding how to go about its future road expansion plan, which technology to adopt, and what models to follow in the future. Since Qatar is preparing to host the world’s biggest sporting events in 2022, this task comes with a deadline.

Qatar already launched its National Road

Yousef Al Emadi, manager of Roads Operations and Maintenance Department, The Public Works Authority (Ashghal), says, “It’s a combination between technology, engineering and infrastructure. This has been integrated into our future infrastructure so now no project will go for tender unless there is ITS infrastructure on it. At the end of the day, you will not have the best results, unless you have both of them.”

But ITS alone cannot solve the problem; it is an enabler or tool at the end of the day.

Alan Bristow, director, Road Space Management – Surface Transport, Transport for London, says, “If you have the wrong ITS trying to solve the wrong problem, it’s a disaster. So you need to understand what is the problem you are trying to solve and then get the correct solution to help in solving it.”

Bristow, who is responsible for managing the whole surface network of London, says the problem most people face is just the sheer amount of date that new systems can face. So data is not the answer. “You need to be able to transfer that data processing. So it becomes useful information to tell you what’s happening and enable you to take action from it and in that Qatar will find itself in the same boat as everyone else,” he says.

For Qatar, Bristow explains, the first thing to look at is what the causes of the problem

130Qatar has set a realistic goal of

reducing the number of road deaths to 130 by 2022.

Qatar is already making some early strides in implementing parts of the ITS system such as the traffic signals control room, which has been implemented for the past four to five years. (Image Corbis)

Over 120 intersections are currently under central control in Qatar. (Image Corbis)

Safety Strategy 2013-2022 in January 2013. It also has an intelligent transport systems (ITS) masterplan, through which it is formulating an action plan, standards and specifications and architecture for implanting ITS into the road development and operation. Qatar has set a realistic goal of reducing the number of road deaths to 130 by 2022.

Embracing ITSITS helps create a single, comprehensive ecosystem that collects and integrates data in real time from all the city’s transport networks. Then, that data is used to manage traffic and transport provision more efficiently, as well as improving road safety quite significantly. ITS is not just about having some communication devices, it involves developing a complete process of delivering and running safe and efficient road networks.

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48 | The Edge

The Edge | 49

are. “You are not tailoring an approach from overseas that doesn’t meet your specific requirements, and that’s very wise.”

He says though some may feel that Qatar is starting from scratch, that sometimes is the best place to start from. “It enables you to take a fresh look, decide what it is you want from the best of other people and combine them together for your own unique flavour for how you approach this,” adds Bristow.

Bristow, who has successfully managed the transportation during the London Olympics in 2012, is probably the best person to ask how Qatar should approach its transport management for the 2022 World Cup. What did London do for the Olympics that Qatar probably can take

“ITS has been integrated

into our future infrastructure so now no project will go for tender unless there is ITS infrastructure on it.” – Yousef Al Emadi, manager of Roads Operations and Maintenance Department, Ashghal.

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some lessons from? “For the Olympics we mobilised a lot of our staff to be ambassadors for the travel network, and to help people understand how to get around. For us, that was incredibly successful. A lot of our staff enjoyed doing it,” he says.

Bristow reveals that they spent seven years before the Olympics doing infrastructure work. “We built Stratford up into an international reception point, we changed the nature of the road network, we did all sorts of things in all sorts of areas to get ready. It’s a huge undertaking, as the World Cup for Qatar will be,” he explains.

Qatar’s road technology Currently, Qatar has different speed monitoring technology that it uses to send data to a control room, but it is difficult to know which car has been speeding unless it is captured through the camera, and two data points are put together to match. Whereas, with the help of telematics, one can automatically find out which vehicle number is going at what speed on a particular road, and the traffic department can

According to available government data, 220 people died and 550 more suffered serious injuries due to road accidents between 2008 and 2010 in Qatar. (Image Corbis)

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The Edge | 49

Road traffic deaths per 100,000 population in 2010.Source: World Health Organisation

issue a fine on the same day.Technology companies working in Qatar

say the country is embarking on a very large ITS programme that will eventually cover about a thousand kilometres of road. “This one thousand kilometres probably will be the most densely equipped road anywhere in the world,” says Husam Musharbash, president and CEO, Traffic Tech, adding that there is a big programme for ITS already happening in Qatar. “But it will take six to seven years to cover all of these roads with traffic monitoring control and road safety equipment, with complete communications network that will enable them to control everything from one central control room,” he adds.

Qatar is already making some early strides in implementing parts of the ITS system such as the traffic signals control room, which has been implemented for the past four to five years. Over 120 intersections are currently under central control. There are several other systems that have been implemented including an emergency vehicle preemption system.

Musharbash says technology can play a big role but what Qatar is moving toward is much more than transportation. “Now they are building the public transport system including the metro system. That will help alleviate some of the traffic congestion problem. We cannot rely on only one mode of transportation and solve all the problems with the increasing population. It’s just not doable,” he says.

Global best practicesQatar can take a lot of cues from developed countries that have successfully organised major events or are constantly developing and testing the latest technologies to improve their

“New technologies that focus around collision warning as well

as autonomous emergency braking could play an important role in reducing crashes as well as collisions with pedestrians.” - John Wall, manager, Road Safety Technology, Centre for Road Safety, Transport for New South Wales.

transport network. For example, New South Wales (NSW), a southeastern state of Australia, is currently trialing

a number of collision avoidance technologies (CAT). These systems rely on vehicle-based sensors as well as cooperative ITS that use high frequency short range radios.

John Wall, manager, Road Safety Technology, Centre for Road Safety, Transport for NSW, tells The Edge, “The Fleet CAT project has installed a camera-based collision avoidance system known as Mobileye in to more than 30 public service vehicles. The system is capable of detecting potential forward collisions with other vehicles, pedestrians and even bicycle riders.” In addition to warnings about potential collisions, the system also warns drivers if they are travelling too close to the vehicle in front as well as warning drivers if they drift out of their lane without using their indicators. Wall acknowledges that the system is still in the early stages of trial so he cannot say if the technology is beneficial to Australian drivers. But research from other countries suggests that this technology could potentially reduce the number of fatal crashes between 20 and 40 percent.

NSW has another ongoing project called Cooperative Intelligent Transport Initiative (CITI), which uses dedicated short-range communications, rather than camera-based systems to predict a risk of a collision. “Vehicles using this system talk to each other around 10 times a second using a basic safety message (BSM), which contains information derived from GPS and includes a vehicle’s location, speed and direction. A computer attached to the radios then uses a mathematical algorithm to predict the probability of a collision,” explains Wall. Modelling by Austroads, an association of Australasian road transport and traffic agencies, suggests that

New South Wales’ (Australia) transport department currently testing the Cooperative Intelligent Transport Initiative (CITI) project, which uses dedicated short-range communications, rather than camera based systems to predict a risk of a collision. (Image Transport for New South Wales)

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cover story | road safety

QATAR’S NATiONAL ROAd SAfETy STRATEgy

The strategy has been designed to save

800 lives and prevent 2000 serious injuries over the next 10 years

QAR155 billion earmarked for ITS investment in next 5 years

QAR600 million worth of contracts have already been awarded to improve roads infrastructure

TMC will integrate information from all of the state’s transport networks

Transport Management Centre (TAM) will make up-to-date travel information available to smartphones and GPS systems for public usage

Crash barriers to be used along the medians of high-speed roads

Rural roads and highways will also receive safety improvement

The National Road Safety Action Plan contains

200 individual actions to be delivered over the next five years

13 government and semi-government agencies are responsible for delivering the actions

An updated Action Plan will be released after

5 years

this technology could reduce fatal crashes by up to 25 percent, but research from the United States suggests that the benefit of using this technology could be a lot higher.

There are many potential intelligent technologies that could assist Qatar in reducing the incidence and severity of crashes. Many of these are being introduced, including traffic signals, fixed speed cameras and radar measured speeding enforcement.

Wall believes new technologies that focus around collision warning as well as autonomous emergency braking could play an important role in reducing crashes as well as collisions with pedestrians. “Collision warning systems use cameras and advanced mathematics to predict a potential collision, but these still require the driver to take appropriate action such as applying the brakes. With the autonomous barking systems that we are seeing built in to vehicles, the car itself will apply the brakes to prevent a collision,” says Wall.

Elaborating on some of the latest technologies vehicle manufactures are introducing to this market, Dr. Richard Brown, head of product management, Middle East for MAN, says, “The first technology which is mandatory, a standard installation and has been introduced in this region, is electronic braking system (EBS). This is one level higher than anti-lock braking system (ABS) where brake pressure is controlled by a computer from the start.”

The next one that MAN Trucks and Bus is bringing is the lane guard system (LGS), which tells the driver if he is crossing the lane without indicating. “Currently, we have one fleet that we are trialing it with to make sure it works in all countries. But it’s already mandatory for all vehicles over 12 tonnes in Europe,” says Brown.

He says vehicles around the world are increasingly communicating through telematics, which is part of ITS. “The vehicle communicates directly with the control centres and passes data, speed, and position. This technology is already available but is still to be introduced in Qatar. Whereas, it is mandatory in Australia, Iran, Brazil, and some parts of North America and China,” he explains.

With the advent of telematics, it is now possible to collect real time data about a vehicle’s speed, location and driving patterns. The technology allows you to monitor drivers’ behaviours – right from how may times he has pressed the brake pedal in a day at what

pressure to whether he has gone around a corner too fast, or the centre of gravity has moved. Vehicle manufactures are talking to ministries of different countries in this region to set the speed limit of the road on their map, on the wall. “Every single truck, car and bus can have telematics. And if he exceeds the speed limit in that area, automatically he can receive a fine,” explains Brown. Al Emadi tells The Edge that they are trying their best to apply best practices and recruit expertise to improve the road network of Qatar, but he acknowledges it is not an easy task.

“There are, for sure, a number of challenges to apply when you look to achieve your goal and targets of the National Traffic Safety Committee. It is a complex process, which involves following different entities and making sure that they are fully aware of what they have to do. You also need to secure the budget for implementing all these projects related to the safety committee,” he explains. But, he suggests, one can overcome these challenges, with expertise and competent people “because in the last few years, Ashghal has recruited a lot of expertise in different sectors. We have everything in place, right from the strategy, road mapping to advanced technology and the government support. So there is nothing which is missing. I think all these will give us more and more support to achieve these goals,” concludes Al Emadi.

Poor intersection layout will be improved with clearer markings, signage and crosswalks

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