Moderator UITP Secretary General Alain Flausch explaining a point as Stefan Seer, Onder Turkoglu,  Gradimir Stegfanovic and Brett Subritzsky look on at a session on mass transport for large events at the UITP summit yesterday. PICTURE: Jayan Orma.

 

By Ramesh Mathew/Staff Reporter

The local planners, policy makers and projects’ advisers were told yesterday to understand and analyse the real needs of the country before putting in place a physical infrastructure of world standards for enabling it to host large events.

At a session on “Sharing the challenges of Mass Transport for Large events” at the 2nd UITP Mena Public Transport for Large Events Summit & Taxi Conference, speakers called upon the local authorities to learn from the mass transport infrastructure set in place in those countries which hosted some of the major sport and other global events in the last one decade.

The session chaired by UITP Secretary General Alain Flausch featured deliberations on how successfully destinations such as Istanbul, Vienna and London have implemented effective transport systems to meet the growing requirements of its residents, especially when they hosted major sport events in recent years.

UITP’s London-based veteran consultant on light rail, Gradimir Stegfanovic, told the gathering how to effectively use such a mass transit facility when a country expects a large number of visitors during a major international event.

While speaking on the flexibility of the system, he said light rail has proved to be a major success as it facilitated the movement of large crowds during some of the major sport events in recent times.

“The facility that it offers to extend railway platforms and also to lay extended lines through roads not only enables a host country to ferry more travellers to a venue but also helps the organisers to dismantle the facility and use it elsewhere after an event,” he said while making a visual presentation of the system.

Fleet operations manager of IETT Istanbul Abdulla Onder Turkoglu spoke on the various transport modes in Turkey’s  largest city which has more than 13.5mn residents.

While citing the success the city has achieved in mass transport, the speaker said besides the world-class Metro that continues to expand even to more areas in the city suburbs, the Bus Rapid Transit, the sealiners, trans-sea ferry, and tram have all put Istanbul miles ahead of many other cities in Europe and the Middle East.

“Qatar could learn from some of our successful mass rapid transit experiments before the city plays hosts to the 2022 FIFA World Cup,” the speaker said.

“While implementing a massive project the local planners need to look seriously at the future events that the city would play host to and how much impact and utility would it have after such events are over,” he said.

Policy expert from Vienna-based Austrian Institute of Technology, Stefan Seer, explained how effectively his country managed to run a such major show as Euro Soccer 2008, making excellent use of its rail facility. “Along with providing remarkably good connectivity for the visitors to the venues, impeccable crowd management systems should be put in place,” said Seer while explaining how rail systems were equipped to receive the spectators on platforms, without resulting in any crowding.

While speaking on Qatar’s Transport resilience Strategic Programme Director of Qatar’s Ministry of Transport Brett Subritzky said such issues as anticipation, preparedness, delegation of authority, direction, information, integration of different transport modes, excellent co-operation between stake holders and continuity are inevitable for the success of f any major event.

The transport ministry official said that Qatar has taken adequate measures to make 2022 FIFA World Cup a major success.

 

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