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Qatar Rail will be using a special concept and scheme to deal with traffic congestions that may occur during the construction of the Doha Metro, senior programme director Markus Demmler told Gulf Times. |
One of the strategies is to keep trucks, which transport various construction materials, out of Doha. He was speaking on the sidelines of the Qatari French Business Club’s second monthly “Tuesday evening” event.
Considering the huge volume of supplies and equipment “to be transferred from point A to B”, Qatar Rail has set up logistic areas around the metro projects, outside peak units, main logistic areas inside Doha, and intermediate storage areas.
Demmler said they have introduced conveyable systems especially in the centre part of Doha, splitting and relaxing the transport by road by holding the materials for at least a night.
“All these excavation materials will be transported by conveyables and finally disposed outside without affecting the traffic,” he explained.
Demmler believes this scheme will create a major positive impact on the traffic in Doha while construction is underway.
He also disclosed that they will be using the truck-bound for the Doha Metro, instead of the Maglev (magnetic levitation) rail system, which may not be suitable in the country.
The Doha Metro will operate using an initial 130 trains but this number can be increased later on when Phase 2 is operational.
“The target is to cover the peak areas, peak hours to have a headway of two to three minutes where the train comes to pick up people and go,” said Demmler.
The Phase 1 project is expected to operate by the end of 2019. Phase 2 is scheduled for 2030 which is the extension to the outskirts.
About the 486-km long distance rail, it will have two lines (passenger and freight), 128 bridges, 11 stations and seven freight yards. Its Phase 1 will be operational by 2018.
In her presentation, Qatar Rail business development manager Sara al-Muhannadi noted that pre-qualification and short listing of contractors will be in the second quarter of this year while tendering of documents for phase one will be in the third quarter. Construction on site will start in the second quarter of 2015 and the GCC mainline Phase 1 will be operational by the third quarter of 2018.
In his message, French ambassador Jean-Christophe Peaucelle stressed that he was impressed with the presentation of the whole rail project saying it “goes with the global dynamism of the country”.
“The ambition is very high and it goes for the National Vision 2030,” he said.
Of the nine major contracts, five more are expected to be awarded soon and Peaucelle is hoping that French companies will play a big role in these projects. He said some French companies are already involved in the project.
“I am fully confident that they will comply with their commitments, because their performance and their know-how is very high. They are well known to be fully reliable companies,” he added. “We hope to have more business opportunities for French companies.”