Major highway construction plans push ahead in Qatar ahead of the 2022 World Cup, to support freight movements and to ease traffic flow around the city of Doha.

The latest roads contract announced in the Gulf state this week is a 65km dual carriageway section of the Doha Expressway – known as Group 7 – linking the cities of Al Khor and Mesaieed.

This project features provision for not just motor vehicles, but foot and cycle paths and a long distance rail corridor. Twenty one free flow junctions will be built along the route along with a series of priority controlled junctions.

Transport consultant AECOM has been awarded a US$148M three year programme of construction supervision and design review services on the contract. “Doha is a busy place in terms of infrastructure development,” said Paul McCormick, the company’s transportation director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. “Jobs on this scale are never easy to win, and we will be making full use of Building Information Modelling on the project.”

He added that walking and cycling infrastructure is important for Qatar so as not to encourage too much reliance on the car, as has been seen elsewhere in the Middle East. 

Last summer AECOM was awarded a US$12M design and build contract to upgrade the 38km North Road in Qatar, which forms part of a wider Qatar Expressway programme.

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