Mohammad Altamash Khan is the Field Correspondent for Know Disasters Magazine, and a Marketing & Communication Officer at Seahorse Engineering Contracting, Doha, Qatar
This article examines the management, planning, transport strategy, traffic modeling, temporary traffic management, and mitigation from the traffic operations perspective, along with lessons learned while hosting a significant event in a small country Qatar.
Background
Qatar – one of the smallest countries, has successfully organized the FIFA World Cup 2022, the most- watched tournament in the world, between 20th November to 18th December 2022. The country hosted 64 matches among 32 teams, their stay, movements, base camp for practices, over 1 million fans, fan zones, and many more. All the activities were limited to a radius of 50 km. Still, nowhere, could I see or hear about major traffic jams, stampedes, accidents, crime, theft, harassment, VIP movements stopping regular traffic, or any other major operational issues during the 29 days of the mega event. I passed through several stadiums daily for work purposes and weekend outings but never felt any traffic problems or major halts, even during the match’s time.
The FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, which ended on 18 December 2022, took the host nation’s organizational prowess to unprecedented levels, earning praise from more than 1 million fans who gathered in Qatar and from the billions who watched the tournament from all corners of the world. FIFA President Gianni Infantino hailed the Qatar edition of the World Cup as the “best.” What surprised me, along with many others, was how many visitors could be accommodated in a small country without crowding or problems related to accommodation or food. I arrived in Qatar on 30th August 2022, i.e., exactly 80 days before the country’s FIFA World Cup started.
Interestingly out of 32 participating teams, I could see only one, i.e., Uruguay’s team bus, and that too because the team had a couple of weeks stay in a hotel adjacent to our office in West Bay. It is incredible and beyond belief that such a small country which is not even as big as the 15th largest district of India in terms of area has successfully hosted such a huge event. It shows good planning, preparedness, and execution. The Qatar World Cup 2022 would stand out for impeccable crowd management, holistic transportation, a highly secure environment, and an inclusive approach within the cultural and traditional ethos. While all the 8-stadiums were located in and around the city, the longest distance between the two farthest venues stadiums is only about 50 KMs from Al Bayt Stadium to Al Janoub Stadium.
How was Qatar able to achieve this?
To prepare for the FIFA World Cup 2022, Qatar had established the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy (abbr. This organization was responsible for developing planning & operations and delivering the required infrastructure (Stadiums and non-competition venues).
The flawless public transport, which includes the metro, trams, and buses, has been lauded by all. The ‘Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy’ (SC) and FIFA have also delivered the most accessible FIFA World Cup in history. The tournament included a wide range of accessibility features, including five types of accessible tickets, sensory rooms, audio descriptive commentary for blind and partially-sighted fans in Arabic and English, last-mile mobility assistance services and inside stadiums, and facilities to ensure the safety and comfort of all fans.
Since this particular issue of the ‘Know Disasters magazine’ is themed around Road safety, it is imperative to understand traffic management during World’s most-watched event. It may make it a case study for the countries of South Asia like Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, and the Maldives or other countries to successfully reduce traffic-related accidents and inconvenience caused to local people while organizing any mega-events. Any prestigious tournament like the Olympics, the FIFA World cup, Commonwealth games, Cricket World Cups, etc., requires a comprehensive transport strategy to make the cities and venues tournament-ready. It should be imperative for India as well to sit and review Qatar’s traffic management as the country is slated to host the 2023 ICC One day cricket World Cup in less than 10-months, and the right preparedness also becomes essential when Indian roads have been at the top of the international table of fatalities caused by road crashes for several years.
Extensive preparation and strong collaboration with stakeholders
Eng. Abdulaziz Al Mawlawi, Mobility Executive Director, SC, said “Four matches a day was a huge challenge and took years of preparation. We worked closely with the Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Interior Traffic Department, Qatar Rail, ASHGHAL, Mowasalat and ride share apps, along with both airports, to develop our plans, which included launching a Transport Management Centre to manage traffic and ensure a seamless experience on match days”.
He further added, “We also developed a huge number of online resources, including a section on the host country website about transport, along with a dedicated Twitter account to ensure the information fans, teams and officials needed was easily accessible. All eight stadiums and other tournament venues were carefully planned in terms of transport infrastructure. Transport logistics involve everyone – from fans, to players and local residents. It forms a key part of the overall success of any tournament. It has been a pleasure to work closely with stakeholders across Qatar and we thank them for their unwavering support and commitment over recent years.” Traffic Impact Assessments for Venues Hosting Major Events Traffic Impact Assessment (TIA) deals with demand forecasting, mode choice, public transportation, master planning, and the accessibility strategy for venues hosting significant events such as Olympic Games and the FIFA World cup. Tournament Demand Forecasting and Mode Choice for Stadiums Hosting FIFA World Cup During the FIFA World Cup, fans occupy not only stadiums but also the designated venues (Fan zones) in public spaces. For instance, during FIFA World Cup 2006, hosted in Germany, 27 million fans watched the tournament at publicly designated spaces and event spots (Frank and Steets 2010) besides the stadium spectators. During the Qatar World Cup 2022, more than 2 million fans, both international and local enjoyed the live broadcasts of games in the vibrant FIFA Fan Festival at Al Bidda Park only which was a 145,000 sq.m and 40,000-capacity venue in Doha.
Consequently, the provision of diverse transportation means for such a level of demand becomes an essential condition. Public transportation, passenger cars, shuttles and coaches, cabs, and taxies are the main modes of transportation in this context. Furthermore, active modes, i.e., bike, scooters, and pedestrians, are considered for access and egress, so-called last-mile connectivity, parts of travel to stadiums. Decker et al. (2005) point out traffic and transportation as a key risk identifier among other factors such as spectator management and crowd control, public health, and environmental concerns for holding special events. They indicate (1) spectator parking areas, (2) traffic patterns, (3) access and staging areas for large numbers of emergency vehicles, (4) alterations to re-current traffic and road use, (5) traffic control, adequacy of the surrounding road network to handle the anticipated spectator vehicular traffic pre, during, and post events, (6) communication between traffic management groups and other services, (7) access and egress routes. Furthermore, they recommend that local law enforcement, transportation authorities, public works, the local media, transit authorities, and operators make a traffic management group and efforts on traffic planning well before the event. Thus, accurately determining the tournament demand is always a critical step toward planning an efficient transport strategy for each tournament venue. Supreme Committee after extensive modeling and research, had derived spectator profiles for the tournament. The spectator profile is estimated by calibrating the existing Qatar Strategic Transport Model (QSTM) to match the tournament requirements. This resulting model is known as the Baseline model and includes assumptions based on the confidential inputs from multiple stakeholders with the tournament demand, background demand, and the revised highway network.
The Baseline model also accounts for the vehicle occupancies of various user groups (spectators categorized by access levels and services offered based on the ticket value types, which include VVIP, VIP, Hospitality packages and general packages, etc.). For example, car occupancy is considered as 2.65 persons per vehicle, whereas taxi occupancy is 4.0 persons per vehicle, which is assumed based on factors such as experience and local transportation studies. The profile of spectators varies according to the teams playing in a match. SC had broadly classified two types of match scenarios;
- Qatar Match Scenario-Qatar national team playing against another team.
- Typical Match Scenario-Two international teams playing against each other.
- Travel Routes and Accessibility for Stadiums
For the stadiums in Qatar for World Cup 2022, the precinct master plan was divided into multiple zones for efficient and safe operations of different user groups according to the access strategy developed by the Supreme Committee. Some of the user groups who were served by various zones are:
- VVIPs/VIPs,
- General Admission Spectators (non-hospitality),
- Hospitality Spectators,
- Workforce and Logistics,
- Information and Technology,
- Security,
- Media and Broadcast and
- Commercial Affiliate
Travel routes and accessibility strategies to the stadium precinct were arranged according to the user groups. The VVIPs/VIPs had to use a dedicated Tournament Route Network (TRN) to access the precinct. The dedicated VVIP access route utilized high-security measures to be protected from any public interference. To reach stadiums, there were two designated routes, the primary and secondary routes for the VVIPs. The routes were segregated from the general public and other user groups. The Emir, VVIPs, and VIPs were given the highest priority, followed by the Match Officials and the Players. The aforementioned user groups can share the same vehicle route. In addition to the above-mentioned user groups, Media, Local Organizing Committee, Emergency Services, and Tournament Workforce were given the priority of access and had segregation of route from the general public.
Courses for officers and other ranks
The Ministry of Interior had conducted a five-day traffic management skills course for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 for officers and other ranks (in batches). The course was organized by the Traffic Awareness Department of the General Directorate of Traffic. It was part of the framework of the continuous efforts of the Ministry of Interior to raise the level of professional performance and enhance the capabilities of human competencies in preparation for the championship. The course program included several modules, such as introduction of the FIFA World Cup, the role of the General Directorate of Traffic in this major sporting event, the duties and tasks of the traffic unit, the daily work of traffic patrols, closures, and alternative plans, and managing pedestrian traffic near sports sites. The course participants had also learnt to deal with traffic accidents during the tournament, the role of the operations room (NCC-TCC), and other related topics.
A Road Engineer’s View
To enhance my understanding, I visited the Duffy Consultant Engineers, Traffic
Engineering & Road Safety Experts, Qatar office in Qatar after the conclusion of FIFA World Cup 2022, to get a few insights like, key learnings and feedbacks about the traffic management during the mega event. DCE specializes in traffic engineering and road safety and has actively supported to the traffic management during FIFA World Cup 2022. DCE was appointed to complete the Concept Design (Stage 1) Audit for Khalifa Stadium in Doha. They also did numerous road safety audits for other stadiums, including Al Thumama Stadium. I met with Mr. Peter Crowe, who works with DCE as Senior Transport Planner & Road Safety Engineer. Mr Peter was involved in several of the stadium’s design and audits and had also watched at least a dozen of world cup matches. So, he was one of the right stakeholders to share a few insights. In preparation for this tournament, a wide-ranging operational strategy was being developed for each of the stadiums separately. Peter said, he was personally very much impressed with the comprehensive planning and execution of the traffic, pedestrian, crowd management and safety plans. Sufficient human resources, Clear guidelines, smooth diversions were there in and around stadiums, fan zones, markets, outing points, etc.
On being asked about if the Qatar’s FIFA World Cup could be an ideal case study for other countries, Mr Peter differed in his opinion. He explained, “Undoubtedly, Qatar has fantastically managed the world cup, but It may or may not be an ideal case study due to several factors. It may not be completely applicable to many other countries, like geographical diversity, resources, population density, urban setup, etc. It would be best if you had a lot of money, strict enforcement of rules and regulations to bring a comprehensive change. It may not be easier to implement such management plans to already established cities like New York, New Delhi, or others. In Qatar it was pretty World Cup specific planning in last one decade which matched with their National Vision 2030. It is certainly an ideal case of how it should be done, but probably not everyone can actually do this. Also, no other
country would have such a compact World Cup that would be limited to 50 kilometers of a country. Again, no other country would be as small with a lesser population yet as rich as Qatar. But certainly, there are many other elements that other countries can look into and take inspiration out of.” Many other experts and professionals may agree with thoughts like Peter but it is a truth that Qatar has done a marvelous job in planning and executing all the minute details of traffic or crowd management.
C:
During the events like FIFA World Cup, which is one of the most-watched sporting events in the world, movements of large crowds of different types take place, not only in or around stadiums, but also at well-known tourist attractions and public transport stations such as metro, tram and bus stations. Such a study should be undertaken for places where stampedes could occur when demands are suddenly increased, particularly at different crowd-attracting points. The intention is to make improvements to enhance safety, accessibility to and mobility within such locations. Qatar’s success in hosting a special edition of the FIFA World Cup daily reveals the correctness of its approach of ignoring the systematic smear campaigns it has been subjected to over the years since it won the honor of hosting the World Cup in 2010. Throughout the dazzling opening and closing of the FIFA World Cup, Qatar managed to open a new chapter in the history of hosting the World Cup as the first Arab and Middle Eastern country to host this mega-global event. It was also a fitting finish for Lionel Messi, hailed as the “Greatest of All Time (GOAT)” who could finally clinch football’s top prize in his fifth and final World Cup appearance to complete his trophy collection.
References:
- https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40996-021-00723-7
- https://thepeninsulaqatar.com/article/29/08/2022/moi-launches-traffic-management-skills-course-for-fifa-world-cup-qatar-2022
- https://www.gulf-times.com/pdf/2022/12/19/main-20221219-1.pdf?ts=033749
- https://www.qatar2022.qa/en/news.planning-and-collaboration-help-to-deliver-outstanding-fifa-world-cup-qatar-2022-transport-operations
- https://morth.nic.in/sites/default/files/Annual%20Report_21-22-1.pdf