NTS eyes integrated transport solutions
FUTURE NEEDS: Survey to collect transport data to address development issues
The National Transport Survey (NTS), which is underway across the Sultanate is aimed at drawing ground for integrated transport solutions based on the survey reports and their thorough analysis.
The Supreme Council for Planning (SCP) has set up a participatory framework to collect transport data to address the development issues in the wake of current economic situation emerged out of prevailing oil prices.
“The public transport schemes that are to be examined in national and regional levels to address the future needs, include the improvement of the existing infrastructure and services (eg bus lanes, better coverage of the area, improved frequencies) and the introduction of new modes of public transport such as railway, tram/ metro. The main target is to tackle the future needs in an integrated way, securing high accessibility and connectivity of main land uses to the network such as residential areas, public transport terminals (eg airports, ports), universities, touristic attractions etc,” said a SCP document on National Transport Surveys.
The survey is currently underway in Dhofar in association with the Ministry of Transport and Communications and the Royal Oman Police (ROP) as the survey is the brainchild of the Supreme Council for Planning (SCP).
The survey teams conducted data collection exercise on Salalah-Mirbat Road on Monday and exhorted the participants to give right inputs, which would be helpful in describing existing conditions and understanding of transport system in the governorate.
“Part of the national transport survey, the inputs would be helpful in doing analysis for predictive transport models so as to forecast future transport conditions and to predict the effects of system changes,” said a team member involved in the survey.
Commenced nationally in the third week of October, the survey would be conducted over a period of 12 weeks involving 17 different types of surveys of approximately 15,000 households, 290 locations for traffic counts, 76 locations for roadside interviews, more than 3,000 interviews at airports, ports and borders and over 4,500 interviews with the public transport users.
The survey inputs are important tools to meet the development challenges as the SCP has come out with Oman National Spatial Strategy (ONSS), which will contain a national strategy on the desired key spatial developments till 2040 with elaborated regional strategies for all the governorates.
The surveys, according to team members, include filed traffic survey, behaviour survey, and public transport survey.
Their analysis would help build implementation programmes and proposals for a legal planning framework, a new planning information system and capacity building programmes.