The Public Works Authority (Ashghal), in partnership with the Qatar Mobility Innovations Center (QMIC), will conduct a national pilot programme for connected vehicles (V2X) early next year, as part of the preparations for the hosting of next generation of intelligent transport systems (ITS) and road safety in the country, the CEO of QMIC, Dr Adnan Abu Dayya (pictured), has said.

QMIC recently announced its new partnership agreement with Ashghal to implement smart mobility innovations in Qatar, which include Integrated Traffic and Road Asset Monitoring, Connected Vehicles Field Pilot and Deployment Plan, Smart Highway Testbed for New Innovative Technologies, and Wain Mobile Platform and Enablers.

‘The national pilot for connected vehicles is important, because that technology will support proactive road safety, will become a source of traffic intelligence and information, and will be a key enabler for autonomous driving and autonomous vehicles in Qatar, Abu Dayya said while talking to The Peninsula on the sidelines of a panel discussion held during the World Incubation Summit 2019 in Doha recently.

He added that based on studies conducted worldwide, connected vehicles technology, which is a key enabler for automated driving, can reduce road accidents by up to 80 percent once fully deployed.

However, Abu Dayya believes that while automated driving will happen in specific cases around the world, it will take more than 10 to 15 years before it actually becomes mainstream.

He added: ‘Autonomous driving in specific use cases such as in shuttles, or in specific environments such as campuses and other controlled environments; it’s going to be mainstream much sooner. But for autonomous driving to become mainstream in a general environment where it can coexist with the normal cars; such that you can just buy an autonomous car to take you to work in a general way, that will take probably a lot more time than what people think.

The connected vehicle pilot deployment programme will also help the authorities to determine the next step towards autonomous driving, added Abu Dayya.

‘It’s always important to understand emerging technologies before you make major investments; to make decisions based on facts, local knowledge, and pilots. We need to see its impact on different cases and see how valuable it can be, and ultimately to make a decision on whether we continue and expand, or maybe it’s not as useful as we thought it would be and put a stop to it, he added.

Since 2009, QMIC has been combining Research & Development (R & D) with innovation, implementation and market delivery to create an impact to Qatar’s large enterprises and the country’s national strategies’ mega projects, under the theme ‘Enabling Smart Living’.

‘We’re going to utilise all the knowledge, data banks, and intelligence that we have. We have been working in this domain for the last eight years. And the assets that we have are unmatched, so we are trying to put them into use to support Ashghal’s operations, and also to work with them on new services and experiment with newer technologies. And the challenge for us and for the other partners in the country is how we can utilise that capacity in the most efficient way, Abu Dayya added.