TRN will provide new truck maintenance, vehicle and truck driver testing facilities

The Truck Route Network (TRN) plan, which is part of Transportation Master Plan for Qatar 2050 (TMPQ), will provide new truck maintenance, vehicle and truck driver testing facilities on specific routes. The schemewill help review need for and benefit of additional maintenance and testing facilities to allow the Ministry of Transport (MoT) and operators to verify if standards are being met and with specific driver testing and vehicle testing facilities. Another scheme of TRN is to formalise the Truck Network as it currently stands to include Strategic Truck Routes, supported by local access routes for trucks.

The report ‘Truck Route Network’ part of ‘Updating Transportation Master Plan for Qatar’, posted by the Ministry on its website, says a designated Truck Route Network (TRN) is crucial for supporting the local, regional and national economic activity and development within Qatar. It can efficiently serve the haulage industry by facilitating truck operations and decreasing freight costs. 

It adds: “A TRN aims at addressing future truck route requirements, increasing the nationwide truck operational efficiency, safety, the wellbeing of drivers, the quality of living for the wider community, to achieve improvements in infrastructure, facilities, operations and fleet, as well as to implement supportive regulation or policy actions.”

The report indicates that separate locations have been identified for truck parking. The criteria for their selection took account of the following: On approach to key destinations of goods movement (industrial cities, economic zones, Hamad Port and Hamad International Airport, industrial area).

The selection criteria also included these locations’ proximity to already existing logistics parks; sufficient space off carriageway so that the trucks can be moved off the main highway; opportunities to provide facilities for drivers (accommodation, food, where public transport is available to facilities during break periods); and locations supported by key freight haulers and stakeholders. 

It further reveals that the effectiveness of these truck parking facilities will be significantly enhanced through the application of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). This will assist drivers in obtaining real-time information about the truck parking. Intelligent Transport Systems can provide an important tool, if applied in the right way, for regulating and managing the movement of trucks at peak hours inside Mesaieed Industrial City for example, including the entrance gates to the city to minimise current congestion and long queues experienced there.

The TRN, under the proposed report, has taken account of the need for Logistics Parks, Consolidation Centers, Truck Holding Areas and Distribution Centers. 

These are located at Birkaht Al Awamer, Al Wakra, Abu Saleel, Al Ruwais and Jery Al Samur, and are generally linked via the Al Majd Road, with local truck routes towards Mesaieed linking the logistics parks at Al Wakra and Birkaht Al Awamer. The locations proposed by Manateq have been selected with business interests and needs in mind and are mostly suited to aspirations of businesses within Qatar.

A number of routes proposed for trucks support the development of the industrial cities. The network has been developed using the key radials in the country between Doha and Abu Samra, Doha and Dukhan and Doha and Shamal, with links from these to the industrial cities.