An office of traffic studies under General Directorate of Traffic (GDT) was inaugurated at Qatar Transportation and Traffic Safety Centre of Qatar University (QU) on Wednesday, 21 February.

The opening event was attended by Brig Mohamed Saad al-Kharji, Director General of Traffic and QU president Dr. Hassan al-Derham along with National Traffic Safety Committee general secretary Brig Mohamed al Maliki, QU College of Engineering (CENG) dean Dr. Khalifa al-Khalifa, CENG’s Qatar Transportation and Traffic Safety Centre (QTTSC) acting director Prof Faris Tarlochan, and representatives from the Ministry of Interior (MoI) and the National Traffi c Safety Committee, as well as QU offi - cials, faculty and staff.

The opening of the new office of the General Directorate of Traffi at QU aims to develop collaboration between QTTSC and GDT on the exchange of information and consultancy on traffic safety. In this regard, QTTSC and GDT will co-operate to develop awareness campaigns and new training programmes for drivers, and run development programmes in co-ordination with international organisations and research centres.

Other areas of collaboration include joint research projects in areas of transportation and traffi c safety. Following the inauguration ceremony, QTTSC and GDT held a workshop on “The change in drivers’ behaviour and its effect on traffi c safety”.

The programme featured several presentations by experts from QU, GDT and the National Traffic Safety Committee. Dr. al-Khalifa said, “The inauguration of the new office is part of the memorandum of understanding which was signed between QU and GDT last year. The MoU aimed to establish collaboration between both institutions to reduce road traffic crashes and to develop a safe road transportation system in line with the National Road Safety Strategy.”
Brig al-Kharji said, “I would like to express my gratitude to QU for its progressive eff orts to launch the GDT Office, and for providing studies, research and surveys that help find solutions for Qatar’s traffi c safety challenges and that add value to our collaboration eff orts to overcome these challenges.”

He added that the opening of the Office of Traffic Studies represents the core of the agreement between the General Administration of Traffic and Qatar University to be the future traffic research center in the State of Qatar. There will be close cooperation between traffic and the university through this office. He added that the dissemination of statistics and annual reports and the extension of the office is to motivate students to make their graduation with useful solutions, benefiting the General Directorate of Traffic. We will provide through this office the information and statistics they need, he added.