facebooktwittertelegramwhatsapp
copy short urlprintemail
+ A
A -
webmaster
Tribune News Network
Doha
THE average number of extra hours spent due to traffic congestion dropped from 98 hours in 2018 to 92 hours per commuter in 2019, recording a drop of six percent, the 4th annual Qatar Traffic Report (QTR) released by Qatar Mobility Innovations Center (QMIC) has revealed.
According to the report, which was released by QMIC at its office at Qatar Science and Technology Park (QSTP) recently, traffic conditions in Q4 2019 were about 12 percent better than in Q4 2018, indicating the positive impact of completion of a number of road projects in 2019 on traffic flow.
Additionally, the opening of the Metro contributed positively to the traffic conditions late in the year by reducing the number of car trips, the report said.
The report further revealed that the progress in road infrastructure last year saved around QR300 million, pointing out that the economic cost (lost productivity) of congestion in 2019 was estimated at QR6.4 billion, 4.5percent less than in 2018. This translates to a loss of about 0.9% of the GDP in 2019.
Dr Adnan Abu-Dayya, executive director (CEO) of QMIC commented, “we are very pleased with releasing the most comprehensive and insightful annual Qatar Traffic report to-date. Our significant R&D effort and investment in building and deploying a comprehensive data sensing network and data bank using 100 percent home-gown technologies is paying off by allowing us to shed light on the status of mobility in Qatar, and is uniquely enabling us to support many mega projects and key strategic partners where mobility intelligence is a key factor. We want to thank many of our partners who supported our effort directly or indirectly especially Ashghal, Ministry of Municipality and Environment, and Qatar Rail”.
QTR takes into consideration a number of key globally accepted metrics to report on the
severity, time, and locations of traffic congestion in Qatar. In order to gauge traffic conditions for year 2019 in a scientific, methodical and accurate way, the QTR used the concept of Masarak Congestion Index (indicates average reduction in speed due to congestion) to assess the level of road congestion. In addition, using publicly available statistics about the size of the work force and average wages in Qatar together with QMIC’s mobility and congestion data, QMIC has built a model to quantify the economic impact of traffic congestion in Qatar.
The report further reveals that January, February, March 2019 were the most congested months in 2019 with a
Congestion Index of 27.7 percent whereas the highest congestion period during the workdays is the morning peak (around 7-8am).
In the morning peak hours of workdays, Sunday had the highest congestion index of 29 percent and Thursdays had the lowest congestion index of 28 percent, it added.
copy short url   Copy
27/02/2020
632