The National's summer road safety series takes an in-depth look each week at issues concerning the well-being of motorists and moves being made to protect road users
Traffic jams and frustrated drivers have become familiar sights in the world’s busiest cities – and as Dubai and Abu Dhabi continue to grow rapidly, road safety becomes an ever more critical factor in how these metropolises evolve.
Urban hubs must evolve to keep pace with the changing demands of busy roads across the UAE, traffic collision experts and city planners told The National.
Ideally for planners who think about pedestrian-oriented road design, we want to design a city that doesn’t depend on cars
Dr Alexandra Gomes,
research fellow at the London School of Economics
Road safety expert Tony Mathew has used TRL Software crash data analysis in cities around the world to identify potential safety improvements.
The software has been used in Dubai and Abu Dhabi to analyse crashes. Data is collected from those at the collision scene – including police officers and road users.
That information is then used to define specific safety modifications for that stretch of highway, to avoid further accidents.
“For a safe system, you must look at the road environment, the user and the vehicle,” Mr Mathew told The National.
“These three elements come together when certain speed crashes occur.
“Then … it is important to look at how the country is organised in its rescue and emergency response. This will determine the level of death and injuries on the network.”
Human behaviour and enforcement of road laws are safety foundations, but how cities are designed to cope with the needs of road users is of increasing significance.
While legislation and a changing work culture across Europe is taking vehicles off the roads, in developing nations traditional infrastructure has a greater role to play.
Collision speeds
Around 1.35 million people are killed on roads around the world, every year. Speed is a critical factor, but it is not the only contributor to road deaths.
Those involved in an 80kph collision on UK roads face a much greater chance of survival than at a similar speed in India because of faster hospital access and the ability to treat those injured within the “golden hour” after the crash injury, Mr Mathew said.
“Europe is looking at what should be the interface between a new kind of mobility with autonomous cars and e-scooters that's going to drive safety,” said Mr Mathew.
“Whereas if you go to a country like Bangladesh or India, infrastructure has been built in an unsafe manner, so there is a lot of work to be done, and also in human behaviour and compliance with regulations and laws.
“What is now generally established with developed country research is that awareness campaigns and education has a very limited effect on road safety improvements.
“But enforcement plays a key role in behaviour.
“We may be aware of certain rules, but we may not necessarily follow them unless we have a fear of enforcement. That's the general finding.”
Mr Mathew’s research in Himachal Pradesh revealed 20 per cent of road deaths in the Indian state and 30 per cent of serious injuries were taking place in specific corridors that made up less than two per cent of the road network.
As a result, remedial work could focus on this area, in the form of engineering improvements and increased enforcement, to increase safety and reduce deaths and injuries.
Road safety review
In Abu Dhabi, a road safety audit is carried out for all new highways at the design phase, identifying potential road safety problems before construction.
The city’s central traffic control system – Scoot – includes thousands of sensors to monitor traffic volumes at junctions.
Across the emirate, a speed management strategy covers speeding, engineering, laws, education, enforcement and co-ordination among road users and planners.
Just 120km away in Dubai, where the population is expected to soar from three million to 5.8 million by 2040, an ambitious plan aims to cut annual road deaths to 1.5 for every 100,000 people.
Improving driving habits, regular vehicle safety checks and traffic awareness campaigns are the cornerstones of that ambition.
Peter Schwinger, a German transport economics, strategy and planning specialist who has worked in the UAE, said the approach to city planning varies greatly around the world.
“One approach is what you see in Gulf and US cities that are car-oriented, then you have progressive European cities like Brussels and Stockholm, with more green, liberal policies: reducing speed, making the streets more liveable and lowering speed limits,” he said.
“Gulf cities and the conservative American approach actually separates vehicles from pedestrians as far as possible, with fencing.
“The whole road design is very exclusive. It’s not meant to include pedestrians, so they stay out.”
Mr Schwinger said public transport can be a big factor in slashing road deaths.
“If you build a new metro or implement a new bus line, automatically the loss of vehicle mileage driven in the network reduces accidents,” he said.
“It’s something to consider when a city is growing, to keep accident rates as low as possible.”
Data collected in 2023 by navigation system TomTom across cities with a population of 800,000 or more evaluated the impact of traffic congestion outside rush hour.
It showed motorists in Dublin faced the longest hold-ups, which increased travel times by 66 per cent outside peak hours.
The Irish capital was followed by the Indian city of Bengaluru (63 per cent), Mexico City (63 per cent), Bangkok and the capital of Peru – Lima (61 per cent) as the top five cities plagued by traffic jams.
Pedestrian focus
Dr Alexandra Gomes, a research fellow at the London School of Economics, has studied transport trends in the Gulf, particularly in Abu Dhabi and Kuwait City.
“Ideally for planners who think about pedestrian-oriented road design, we want to design a city that doesn’t depend on cars,” said Dr Gomes.
“That’s not what’s happening. Although Abu Dhabi is improving some of this infrastructure for pedestrians, it’s still growing based on cars.
“The idea is planners should think about designing cities for pedestrian-oriented road design and then cars are added as an extra.”
Awareness and education programmes are another key factor in cutting traffic-related deaths, with most nations running road safety weeks.
In the UAE, the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) launched a public education initiative in March during the Unified Gulf Traffic Week, alongside the Ministry of Interior and national traffic departments.
Multiple initiatives targeted groups including children, students, cyclists, scooter riders, people who have been injured in traffic accidents and the wider general public.
Removing human intervention – and error – through technology is seen as increasing road safety in terms of crashes and injuries.
“In London, there’s a combination of measures that not only improves the infrastructure for active mobility, but creates barriers to cars to go fast,” said Dr Gomes.
“In the Gulf, roads have the width to improve, to have cycle lanes. It’s just a question of the political will and then the planning will follow.”
First Person
Richard Flanagan
Chatto & Windus
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Desert Warrior
Starring: Anthony Mackie, Aiysha Hart, Ben Kingsley
Director: Rupert Wyatt
Rating: 3/5
Match info
Uefa Champions League Group H
Juventus v Valencia, Tuesday, midnight (UAE)
GAC GS8 Specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 248hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 400Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 9.1L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh149,900
UK’s AI plan
- AI ambassadors such as MIT economist Simon Johnson, Monzo cofounder Tom Blomfield and Google DeepMind’s Raia Hadsell
- £10bn AI growth zone in South Wales to create 5,000 jobs
- £100m of government support for startups building AI hardware products
- £250m to train new AI models
Gender pay parity on track in the UAE
The UAE has a good record on gender pay parity, according to Mercer's Total Remuneration Study.
"In some of the lower levels of jobs women tend to be paid more than men, primarily because men are employed in blue collar jobs and women tend to be employed in white collar jobs which pay better," said Ted Raffoul, career products leader, Mena at Mercer. "I am yet to see a company in the UAE – particularly when you are looking at a blue chip multinationals or some of the bigger local companies – that actively discriminates when it comes to gender on pay."
Mr Raffoul said most gender issues are actually due to the cultural class, as the population is dominated by Asian and Arab cultures where men are generally expected to work and earn whereas women are meant to start a family.
"For that reason, we see a different gender gap. There are less women in senior roles because women tend to focus less on this but that’s not due to any companies having a policy penalising women for any reasons – it’s a cultural thing," he said.
As a result, Mr Raffoul said many companies in the UAE are coming up with benefit package programmes to help working mothers and the career development of women in general.
Sri Lanka's T20I squad
Thisara Perera (captain), Dilshan Munaweera, Danushka Gunathilaka, Sadeera Samarawickrama, Ashan Priyanjan, Mahela Udawatte, Dasun Shanaka, Sachith Pathirana, Vikum Sanjaya, Lahiru Gamage, Seekkuge Prasanna, Vishwa Fernando, Isuru Udana, Jeffrey Vandersay and Chathuranga de Silva.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
SUE%20GRAY'S%20FINDINGS
%3Cp%3E%22Whatever%20the%20initial%20intent%2C%20what%20took%20place%20at%20many%20of%20these%20gatherings%20and%20the%3Cbr%3Eway%20in%20which%20they%20developed%20was%20not%20in%20line%20with%20Covid%20guidance%20at%20the%20time.%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%22Many%20of%20these%20events%20should%20not%20have%20been%20allowed%20to%20happen.%20It%20is%20also%20the%20case%20that%20some%20of%20the%3Cbr%3Emore%20junior%20civil%20servants%20believed%20that%20their%20involvement%20in%20some%20of%20these%20events%20was%20permitted%20given%20the%20attendance%20of%20senior%20leaders.%C2%A0%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%22The%20senior%20leadership%20at%20the%20centre%2C%20both%20political%20and%20official%2C%20must%20bear%20responsibility%20for%20this%20culture.%C2%A0%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%22I%20found%20that%20some%20staff%20had%20witnessed%20or%20been%20subjected%20to%20behaviours%20at%20work%20which%20they%20had%20felt%20concerned%20about%20but%20at%20times%20felt%20unable%20to%20raise%20properly.%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%22I%20was%20made%20aware%20of%20multiple%20examples%20of%20a%20lack%20of%20respect%20and%20poor%20treatment%20of%20security%20and%20cleaning%20staff.%20This%20was%20unacceptable.%22%C2%A0%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The specs
Engine: 3.5-litre twin-turbo V6
Power: 380hp at 5,800rpm
Torque: 530Nm at 1,300-4,500rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Price: From Dh299,000 ($81,415)
On sale: Now
SQUADS
UAE
Mohammed Naveed (captain), Mohamed Usman (vice-captain), Ashfaq Ahmed, Chirag Suri, Shaiman Anwar, Mohammed Boota, Ghulam Shabber, Imran Haider, Tahir Mughal, Amir Hayat, Zahoor Khan, Qadeer Ahmed, Fahad Nawaz, Abdul Shakoor, Sultan Ahmed, CP Rizwan
Nepal
Paras Khadka (captain), Gyanendra Malla, Dipendra Singh Airee, Pradeep Airee, Binod Bhandari, Avinash Bohara, Sundeep Jora, Sompal Kami, Karan KC, Rohit Paudel, Sandeep Lamichhane, Lalit Rajbanshi, Basant Regmi, Pawan Sarraf, Bhim Sharki, Aarif Sheikh
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League semi-final, first leg
Barcelona v Liverpool, Wednesday, 11pm (UAE).
Second leg
Liverpool v Barcelona, Tuesday, May 7, 11pm
Games on BeIN Sports
The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre V8 twin-turbocharged and three electric motors
Power: Combined output 920hp
Torque: 730Nm at 4,000-7,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed dual-clutch automatic
Fuel consumption: 11.2L/100km
On sale: Now, deliveries expected later in 2025
Price: expected to start at Dh1,432,000
The National Archives, Abu Dhabi
Founded over 50 years ago, the National Archives collects valuable historical material relating to the UAE, and is the oldest and richest archive relating to the Arabian Gulf.
Much of the material can be viewed on line at the Arabian Gulf Digital Archive - https://www.agda.ae/en
