Saudi Gazette report

RIYADH – Vehicles make an average of 1.7 million trips on the Kingdom›s roads each day.

The Transport Ministry disclosed this citing statistics for the month of October 2017 when a total of 53 million trips were recorded.

The ministry said Saleel-Riyadh Road saw the largest number of speed limit violations, accounting for 53 percent of all trips on the road.

Madinah-Makkah Road witnessed the largest number of trips (3.1 million) during the month, followed by Makkah-Madinah Road (3.2 million trips), Makkah-Jeddah Expressway 1.8 million trips, Jeddah-Makkah Expressway 1.7 million trips and Dhahran-Jubail Road 1.7 million trips.

The ministry’s monthly report also pointed out that Makkah Expressway witnessed the heaviest traffic during October compared to other roads.

Makkah-Madinah Expressway saw an intense traffic of 95,953 cars and 9,410 trucks daily in October compared to 99,749 cars and 8,213 trucks the previous month.

Madinah-Makkah Expressway came second in traffic volume with 93,658 cars and 8,308 trucks, compared to 94,634 cars and 7,359 trucks in September.

Makkah-Jeddah Expressway came third with 56,723 cars 3,177 trucks against 55,791 cars and 2,841 trucks in the previous month.

Referring to violations of speed limits, the report said the average speed of small cars that crossed the speed limits was 140 km per hour and of trucks 100 km per hour, with Saleel-Riyadh Road registering the highest number of speed violations in October.

The rate of vehicles that violated speed limit on the road however decreased from 54 percent in September to 53 percent in October.

“In August 2017, the rate of speed violations on the road was 50 percent,” Al-Hayat Arabic daily reported quoting the ministry.

Riyadh-Bisha Road stood second in crossing speed limits with 52 percent, which is less than September by 1 percent. As many as 58,177 cars entered Riyadh daily in the month of October from the Jeddah side, followed by 55,853 from Janadriya, 44,536 from Al-Kharj and 43,908 from Qassim.

The average number of daily entries of cars to Riyadh for the past four months was 58,859 from Qassim Road, 52,523 from Janadriya Road, 48,235 from Al-Kharj and 48,304 from Jeddah Road, the report pointed out.

Speaking about traffic to Makkah, the report said 31,691 cars entered the holy city from Jeddah side on a daily average, 22,517 from Al-Sail Road, 16,763 from Madinah Road, 12,386 from Taif Road. The peak hour of traffic to the city from Jeddah and Al-Sail roads was noon while on Taif and Madinah roads was 7 p.m. and 8 a.m. respectively.

The ministry emphasized its decision to report traffic movement on main roads in the Kingdom on a regular basis, saying that it would contribute to making advanced planning for new road construction and expansion. It will also help find out the reasons for road accidents.

“We hope the traffic department and highway police would make use of these reports to intensify their presence to regulate traffic during peak hours,” the ministry said, adding that it would strengthen the Kingdom’s road system to achieve economic and social goals envisaged in Vision 2030.

The ministry has installed equipment to record and estimate traffic movement on major roads across the country. It has installed five units at the entrances of Riyadh, four at the entrances of Makkah, one inside Makkah city and another in Dammam.