The Ministry of Transport (MoT) has won first place in the Innovation category of the Dubai Award for Sustainable Transport (DAST) for its project Qatar Activity-Based Transport Model (QABM).
The DAST award recognised the QABM's excellence as an innovative national tool supporting strategic transportation planning and evidence-based, data-driven decision making.
The award was received by His Excellency the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Transport Mohammed Abdullah al-Maadeed, at a ceremony held Thursday under the patronage of the Crown Prince of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Defence and Chairman of the Executive Council of Dubai, Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum.
This achievement reinforces Qatar's position in developing innovative, data-driven transportation solutions.
It also supports the ministry’s efforts to build an integrated, sustainable and resilient transportation ecosystem that improves the quality of life, enhances the efficiency of infrastructure investment, and responds to Qatar's future growth and development requirements.
"This achievement also recognises the ministry's efforts to develop an advanced national transportation modelling system,” said Assistant Undersecretary for Land Transport Affairs Eng. Abdullah Saif al-Sulaiti.
“The QABM simulates people's daily activities and travel patterns, analyses transportation demand, assesses network performance, and tests the potential impacts of future projects and policies before implementation,” he said. “This supports more efficient planning and investment across Qatar's transportation system."
Winning first place, he added, reflects the ministry’s “Land Transport Affairs' commitment to advancing innovation in transportation and using evidence and data to support decision-making based on systematic analysis and demonstrates the MoT's commitment to developing advanced planning tools that enhance the efficiency of the transportation system and strengthen the integration of strategic and operational planning”.
Al-Sulaiti noted that this direction supports the objectives of the 3rd Qatar National Development Strategy, particularly its ambitions for leadership in digital government and the development of Government Excellence and the advancement of the model will not stop at this stage; it will serve as a foundation for automating the use of big and real-time data and for the continuous updating and improvement of the model through artificial intelligence (AI) and digital-twin technologies.
He added that the future development programme aims to expand the model's user base to include both planning and operational entities.
It will also progressively advance the model, al-Sulaiti continued, from a long-term strategic planning tool into an integrated platform that supports operational planning, traffic analysis, and transportation and mobility planning for major events.
The model enables the assessment of a wide range of transportation scenarios and policies, including public transportation network development, parking management, Park & Ride services, transportation demand management, and the integration of land-use and transportation planning.
It also supports the assessment of the anticipated impacts of infrastructure projects and different transportation policies.
Representing a significant shift compared to traditional trip-based mobility models, the QABM simulates the daily activities and travel patterns of people, taking into account when, where, for how long, and with whom activities are carried out, as well as the mode of transport used to reach them.
Furthermore, the model accounts for the interdependencies between the daily travel decisions of individuals and their households, ensuring that no single trip is treated separately from other activities and trips.
The QABM includes a detailed simulation of Qatar's transportation networks, encompassing over 182,000 road segments and nearly 65,000 intersections, in addition to public transport networks and services.
The Dubai Award for Sustainable Transport (DAST) is a premier regional initiative that recognises and honours outstanding contributions from government bodies, semi-government entities, private companies, research centres, universities, and schools that advance sustainable mobility and green infrastructure.
