Qatar has been making great strides in strengthening its public transport system.
Under this focus, the country launched the Doha Metro last year and also ran trials for the Automatic Rapid Transit (ART) system.
Additionally, earlier this year, Qatar Foundation introduced the electric-powered Education City tram, offering a state-of-the-art transport system to its community as well as visitors at QF.
In a bid to support the sustainability goals of the Qatar National Vision 2030 and to establish an integrated, world-class, multimodal transportation system, the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MoTC) recently announced that it is working on finalizing a strategy and legislation related to the introduction of electric buses in Qatar.
According to a statement by the Ministry, the strategy aims to support the country’s move toward a green future.
The strategy also seeks to create an economic-environmental balance, in a way that ensures the sustainability of the infrastructure projects in the transportation sector.
With a view to promoting environment-preservation, His Excellency the Minister of Transport and Communications Jassim bin Saif Al Sulaiti highlighted that the strategy will see public buses, government school buses, and Doha metro feeder buses shift to electric buses, over some time.
It is expected that the move will reduce harmful carbon emissions from buses by the year 2030.
The move will pave the way for the creation of an integrated electric public transit system, making Qatar the first country in the world to have such a mass transit system, operating with clean energy.
HE the Minister said, under these plans, there will be several depots set up across the country by 2021, featuring facilities such as parking and charge, maintenance service, administrative office, and staff accommodation.
The strategy aims to achieve a 25 percent shift of public transit fleet of buses to electric buses by 2022.
It also looks at offering electric bus use as one of the main services during the highly-anticipated FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.
"Developing such strategy and legislation comes as an integral component of the plans of our wise leadership with regards to enacting the regulatory laws and policies that ensure the success and sustainability of the projects," HE Al Sulaiti said.
He further noted that this will boost “the potential legacy value for the bus system of the World Cup Championship 2022 to create a positive legacy in a way that clearly demonstrates Qatar’s commitment to clean energy solutions for transportation in the world.”
This will also support “[Qatar’s] determination to host an exceptional, eco-friendly, carbon-neutral championship,” he said.
SOURCE:QATARLIVING