As praise and admiration come in from the rest of the world regarding Qatar’s spectacular hosting of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, several infrastructures were crucial to the tournament’s success. In 29 days, the Arab nation staged one of the best World Cups, hosting over 1.4 million fans.
To accommodate the massive flow of passengers and logistics, the transportation sector, which had been upgraded ahead of the tournament, was paramount to the smooth operations as Qatar hosted the most compact World Cup ever.Yesterday, the Ministry of Transport announced that the sector achieved record numbers providing service for approximately 26.8 million visitors and fans. According to the ministry, more than 18 million and 416,000 passengers were transported on the Doha metro, and 829,741 passengers used the Lusail Tram. Approximately 150,000 persons used the Education City tram, while the Msheireb tram transported more than 27,000 passengers.
Bus services’ users exceeded 7.368 million passengers, in addition to 315,122 taxi trips. Passengers registered more than eight million transactions through the online applications carriers from November 20 to December 18. Regarding air transportation, air traffic at Hamad and Doha International Airports recorded 26,425. For logistics and supply chains, 125,285 standard containers were handled during the World Cup. More than 131,000 tonnes of general goods, in addition to 6,755 units of equipment and cars, 1,910 cattle by receiving 146 multi-species vessels at the Port of Hamad and 105 vessels at the Port of Ruwais were processed.
Additionally, Mowasalat (Karwa) also disclosed that it shuttled over 7,550,760 passengers via the Metrolink and public buses. These services operated extensively, covering over 200 routes during the World Cup. Karwa deployed 4,000 buses and 18,000 staff and drivers.
Impressively, Karwa recorded 2,910,425 kilometres driven and nearly 235,000 staff working hours for bus services related to Qatar 2022. It is also worth mentioning that the company booked 600 buses to transport almost 415,000 fans of the Abu Samra border.
As the world takes in what was a memorable World Cup, Qatar’s commitment to eco-friendly transport remained central in hosting the first carbon-neutral tournament of this magnitude. The fully electric Doha Metro and its underground network directly connected five of the eight tournament venues with HIA. The remaining three venues were accessible by metro and bus routes.Qatar’s investment in the transport infrastructure over the last decade has undoubtedly contributed to the success of the World Cup, and it sets the country on the best path to welcome more sports, as well as regional and international events.
