World Cup 2022: environmentally friendly vehicles for the fans
The World Cup in Qatar in 2022 will be the first to have dedicated environmentally-friendly vehicles to get fans around.
According to statistics from Qatar's Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, responsible for managing the 2022 World Cup infrastructure projects, more than a million fans are expected at the tournament from the time it gets underway, meaning a major effort will be required to provide them with sufficient transport. This will be the greatest number of visitors Qatar has ever had in a single month.
World-class environmentally friendly transport at World Cup 2022
The goal is to provide world-class transport options, with the launch of the metro, which will move around a third of all fans during the World Cup a notable success. Over and above that, a fleet of electric cars will be one of the ground-breaking achievements of the Qatar World Cup, which will be the first to use these environmentally-friendly vehicles to move fans around at a World Cup.
Qatar is aiming to move to having some 3% to 5% of its vehicle fleet being environmentally friendly for 2022, in line with the goal of having 25% of public transport vehicles being environmentally friendly, and ensuring these are used in the main service areas for the World Cup.
Importance of environmentally-friendly vehicles
Marcelo Constable, an economist at Qatar's Environment and Energy Research Institute, said: "These are essential steps in gaining the trust of visitors because with the transformation of transportation to environmentally-friendly vehicles this represents an achievement of special significance in backing up the government's message about its obligation to use environmentally friendly vehicles, and to provide fuel that is economical in this region of the world. It is difficult to talk about a single excuse for the absence of the use of electric vehicles, but it is likely that there are many factors involved, among others, the fuel, the high purchase price, the lack of the necessary infrastructure to use this type of vehicle. and the lack of collective consciousness."
“In order for Qatar to overcome the issues related to the cost in providing these vehicles, which does correspond to the benefits they provide, it is important for the government to guarantee the transformation of vehicles taking into account local requirements and market conditions,” he added.
The first time environmentally-friendly vehicles were used in Qatar was in 2019 with the inauguration of the world cup stadium Al-janoub, however little by little the goal has been on moving to electric vehicles and to use them at a World Cup for the first time, at the tournament in 2022.