Swedish experts, MoI tackle road safety

Traffic safety experts from Sweden met with senior officials at Qatar’s Ministry of Interior (MoI) yesterday to tackle several topics on road safety, Swedish ambassador Ewa Polano has said.
The embassy and Swedish institutions have been closely collaborating with Qatari counterparts, mainly MoI and Qatar University (QU), to help in making Qatar roads safer, according to the envoy,
“This was an excellent opportunity for policy makers, Swedish road safety experts, together with high-level representatives from Qatar academia, to share their experiences, find common goals, and discuss how to make Qatar roads safer,” Polano stressed.
The roundtable discussion was attended by Dr Henriette Wallén Warner and Dr Sonja Forward from the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute, National Traffic Safety Committee secretary-general Brigadier Mohamed Abdulla al-Malki, Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) executive director Dr Abdul Sattar al-Taie, Qatar National Traffic Safety Office manager Dr Kim Jraiw, and Dr Wafa al-Yazeedi, chairperson of Rehabilitation and Physical Medicine at Hamad Medical Corporation, among others.
Some of the topics discussed included ‘Tools for improving road safety in Qatar’, ‘Vision Zero conference in Stockholm in June’, and ‘Road safety awareness campaign’.
Sweden, since the establishment of its embassy in Doha in 2014, focused heavily on road safety and traffic management in Qatar, Polano said. “This co-operation was deepened during the fall of 2016, when a contract was signed for two Swedish traffic behaviourists, Dr Warner and Dr Forward to work for MoI on the creation of various awareness campaigns,” she noted.
“Sweden is now ready to build upon that partnership and has brought Dr Dirk van Amelsfort, expert in congestions management, to Qatar to expand our efforts further,” the envoy pointed out.
Dr Amelsfort is a researcher and an expert in the field of road user charging. He has led different projects for both public and private clients all over the world to investigate the benefits and costs of road user charging.
According to Polano, the discussion also aims to broaden Sweden’s close partnership with MoI to include research partnerships with QU’s Transportation and Traffic Safety Studies Centre, and QNRF, among others.