By Mohamed Alaa Eldin
The Communications Division of the Chamber of Information Technology and Communications and thearmed forces will hold a meeting this month to discuss the implementation of a smart transportation project.
The project’s implementation, which will focus on new highways to be developed by the Egyptian government, will be discussed by the Division Head Hamdi Laithi and armed forces project management officials.
Laithi added in statements to Daily News Egypt that the armed forces are excited to implement the project, especially on roads that have been developed or rebuilt. This is due to the lower costs compared to implementation for roads that are already in place. The entire process will be beneficial for the Egyptian economy.
According to Laithi, the EU will support the project financially with a sum of €95m over various stages, although the IT Chamber has yet to determine the total cost of the project.
The project’s idea is based on observing roads and predicting the most crowded areas or providing alternative routes. The project also includes preparing a list of data for all vehicles to provide knowledge of banned cars and facilitate the process of dealing with them. The smart transport project contributes greatly to maintaining efficiency for roads and decreasing gasoline consumption. This will contribute positively to saving subsidy money, and is critical in attracting investments through infrastructure development.
Laithi added that the company’s services for the project include supporting mobile networks that drivers use to send message to relevant authorities if they encounter any problems on the road.
It has been emphasised that the electoral platform of President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi included the construction of 22 new roads within the highway network project. Joint investments for the project were distributed between the private sector, the state, and the armed forces.
The Ministry of Transportation is currently implementing projects to develop the current road network, to include the construction of new roads stretching 365km. A further 450km of roads will be duplicated to accommodate more traffic and prevent accidents, and another 1,900km will be maintained, all of which will cost a total of EGP 8bn.
