Ahmed Al-Binali, Mobility Operation Director at the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy. PIC: ABDUL BASIT
Doha: As the world sets to place its foot in Qatar to witness an epoch-making event, the country has gestured its alacrity to welcome fans from across the globe. The one-month-long tournament is scheduled to kick off on November 20 to December 18.
In an exclusive interview with The Peninsula, Ahmed Al-Binali, Mobility Operation Director at the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy explicated on the different types of transportation available to the football stadiums, especially in focus on the tournament openers between hosts Qatar and Latin American rivals Ecuador at the Al Bayt Stadium on November 20.
He said: “As you can see, my country is ready. With regards to the opening match, we recommend fans and locals use their private vehicles as the transport modes can be utilised by international fans. We have also created around 80,000 car parks all around the stadium and fans have the options to choose between buses, metro, and taxis.”
Al Bayt Stadium, one of the 8 FIFA World Cup venues is located at Al Khor City [35 km north of Doha] and will host nine matches including a quarterfinal and a semifinal. Al Binali expounded on the number of buses available throughout the event as nearly 3,000 buses will serve the public and dedicated 1010 buses are scheduled for the visitors traveling to Al Bayt matches [510 for Metro shuttle and 500 for Stadium express].
He said that “We have multiple services for buses. For both airports, there are buses that can take the spectators from the airport and we also have services from central Doha and other hubs including accommodations. Guests during the World Cup can also avail of various transport services in the country including metros and cabs in addition to the shuttle buses.
Al Binali said: “Spectators can take any of the 37 metro stations and utilise their bus stations to the stadiums. We also have more than 18,000 taxis available including Uber, Kareem, and Karwa. The tournament buses are free of charge to all Hayya holders."
Visitors can utilise the metro and bus services for free if they have active Hayya Cards. According to health officials in the country, Ehteraz [official contact tracing application for Covid-19 in Qatar] is not required to board public transport, remarked Al Binali.
Qatar looks forward to accommodating over one million fans across the globe and providing them with exceptional, qualitative, and safe means of transportation whilst enjoying their games.
The bus service will be operational with specified timings for every game and is assertive in assuring the well-being of the guests. He said, “The bus service will operate four hours before the match kickoff until 1.5 hours of final whistle. So these are the service in terms of stadiums. In terms of central Doha, we have some with 18 hours, which is just following the exact time of the metro operating hours, and also some services are 24 hours.”
Al Binali emphasised the travel plan implementation by the visitors to ensure they arrive well in advance for the matches and to keep updated regarding the transportation schedule. He said: “I do recommend every spectator including residents and international fans to plan their journey. The journey planner is also available in the Hayya app, google, and other software to know which transport mode you can take, car parks you can utilise and where are the road diversion and closures around the stadiums.”
“Know your way and add extra time. This is the most important thing to enjoy your trip. We have established a Twitter account, which is
@Roadto2022Go. We are updating that on a daily and hourly basis if there’s any notification, road closure, or traffic. We recommend all the fans to follow the account and to know the updates and also to utilise our official website, which is qatar2022.qa/transport,” he added.
