President of Ashghal Dr. Eng. Saad bin Ahmad Al Muhannadi, with the President of Parsons International, Garold Adams, during the signing ceremony.
Doha: The Public Works Authority (Ashghal) has started assigning numbers to all highways and internal roads to facilitate the motorists reaching their destination easily.
“The numbers are easy to memorise and recall. Under the new system Al Shamal Road, for example, will be given number Q1,” said President of Ashghal, Dr. Eng. Saad bin Ahmad Al Muhannadi, while addressing a press conference at the Ashghal headquarters to launch the Directional Sign Development Strategy.
He said that Ashghal will launch a massive media campaign to educate the motorists and road users about new numbered names of highways. “The most spoken languages such as English and Urdu will be used to reach maximum number of people during the campaign,” said Al Muhannadi.
The Strategy aims to provide an excellent infrastructure that will standardise the implementation of directional signs, making them easy to follow and read, and thus facilitate reaching the main destinations, facilities and landmarks of the country. It also helps to improve traffic flow and connectivity between main and local roads and enhance the safety of road users.
The launch ceremony was attended by Brigadier General Mohammed Marafih, Director of Traffic Engineering and Safety Department at General Department of Traffic, a number of department managers, relevant head of sections in Ashghal and representatives of the consultant company.
Al Muhannadi signed the contract of the ‘Directional Sign Development Strategy’ project with Garold Adams, President of Parsons International. The consultant will complete the design of Directional Sign Development Strategy by the end of 2019.
Ashghal President said that signing the contract is a continuation of Ashghal’s efforts towards adopting the best practices in the field of development, implementation and management of infrastructure.
Adams noted that partnership and cooperation with Ashghal is not for the first time.
The contract includes reviewing, updating and developing of all existing directional signs, as well as providing new signs in line with design standards within the directional signs strategy.
It also provides clear information to help road users to reach various destinations in the country, while reducing travel time and accidents since road users will be able to set their routes in advance, then gradually and safely adjust them as they approach the intended exit without the need to make a last-minute change exposing them and others to risk.
The signs will be implemented in accordance with international standards, with attention to the installation in appropriate and clear locations to enable the driver to read the information written on them, and make it easy to see it clearly day and night.
The standardisation of the signs will add an aesthetic characteristic to the main roads in Qatar.
The names of areas, roads, streets, symbols and some colours are used on directional signs on main roads and expressways in the country to categorise and identify these roads, making it easy to describe how to reach the destination using only the code of the road and the number of exit.
One of the most important symbols used on the directional signs are the symbol ‘Q’, which are used for the identification and numbering of the expressways that cross the main areas in the country from North to South and from East to West or through them.
The symbol ‘D’ is also an important symbol used to identify the main roads, which cross the main areas and intersect with the expressways “Q”. Example of the main roads symbol: ‘D6’ which symbolises Sabah Al Ahmad Corridor. Other symbols are also used to identify important destinations and places of interest such as the ball symbol, which symbolises the football stadiums, and the plane symbol, which symbolises Hamad International Airport. Also in some cases, some destinations are written on the surface of the asphalt road where it is difficult to add road signs. Some directional signs are equipped with intelligent transport systems (ITS) to illustrate some information of interest to the driver such as: lane closed, busy road – used alternative road, etc.
Replying to a question on imposition of toll tax on highways, President of Ashghal said that a proposal was understudy and it was supposed to be implemented during 2020 but after availability of all alternative public transports to encourage people to use them.
