Anyone who enters any metro station in Doha immediately notices the warning: until December 22, there are no more exclusive cars for families, women and Gold customers, the transport system’s loyalty club.
The unprecedented measure has one objective: to increase the capacity of the public transport system in the capital of Qatar during the World Cup. The organization expects around 1.2 million tourists to pass through the country during the tournament, which starts this Sunday (20th) and ends on December 18th.
It is also an attempt to make visitors and residents of the country not go to car games. The idea is to avoid an already foreseen traffic chaos. A liter of gasoline in the city costs, on average, 2.09 qatari rial (R$ 3.07 at the current exchange rate). Qatar is the 14th country that extracts the most oil. That’s about 2 million barrels a day.
“Hosting four games a day is a challenge for a city like Doha. Of course we expect congestion,” says Abdulaziz Ali Al-Mawlawi, director of mobility at the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, which is responsible for organizing the tournament.
During the group stage, on 11 dates there will be four matches. The first will be next Tuesday (22).
Of the eight stadiums that will be used for the World Cup, five are close to metro stations. There are no statistics released by the government of Doha, but it is impossible to find crowded trains, as seen in large capitals. Local residents, used to the low price of gasoline and the ease of buying cars, are not used to using it. The first lines opened in 2019.
“We are trying to make everyone aware of some rules to ease the problems”, says Al-Mawlawi.
The organization of the Cup appealed to fans who want to go to the games by car to do so using a carpool system, with several people in the same vehicle. Cars will be prohibited in some parts of central Doha. The government ordered the closure of schools during the World Cup and determined that 80% of public servants work from home.
To encourage the use of public transport, Qatar has defined that holders of the Hayya Card, a digital identification system used during the World Cup, can have free access to the metro. For tourists, the document also serves as an entry visa.
There is no published number of monthly users of the transport system in Doha. At the end of March this year, the company that manages the subway celebrated that 50 million people have passed through the turnstile since its inauguration. This means revenue of 100 million Qatari Riyals (R$ 146.3 million at current exchange rates).
During the World Cup, the subway will also have more trains to reduce the gap between one and the other. According to the organization, the wait will be 2 minutes and 45 seconds on average.
As a seasoned news journalist, I bring a wealth of experience to the field. I’ve worked with world-renowned news organizations, honing my skills as a writer and reporter. Currently, I write for the sports section at News Bulletin 247, where I bring a unique perspective to every story.
