SAUDIS LOOKTO IMPROVE TRANSPORTATION Recently, School Transportation
News hosted a group from the Saudi Arabia Ministry of Education at the STN EXPO in late July. Te group, headed by Sami Aldubikhi, Ph.D., came to Reno, Nev., to learn more about school transporta- tion in the United States and to bring back to the kingdom helpful strategies for a new project. Aldubikhi, the supervisor of School Transportation Project, ex- plained that the Ministry is attempting to improve school travel for female students, a project entitled “Al-Ameen.” “We are trying to learn from the suc-
cessful experiences of the rest of the world in this field,” said Aldubikhi, adding that currently there are 450,000 school girls transported by a combined private fleet of 5,000 school buses. “However, the King- dom of Saudi Arabia has special cultural circumstances that pose a challenge and make the service provision more crucial.”
Te immediate goal is to design general
policies and strategies that will assist the Ministry in developing a framework for a country-wide program to plan the routes and manage the bus fleets by assisting the private contractors. Starting in early 2008, the Ministry put
together a pilot project in the country’s Al-Medina province to transport more than 19,000 female students. At the start of the 2009 school year, the Ministry ex- panded the program to include seven other provinces. By the 2011 school year, the Ministry plans to transport 600,000 female students, which accounts for 27 percent of the total population of girls in general education. “Under the Al-Ameen school bus proj-
ect, technology programs have been used to gather, store and analyze spatial and non-spatial data related to girls’ shuttling. Te control rooms at the school admin- istrations in provinces monitor the buses’ performance on a daily basis, and solving
problems that may arise,” said Aldubikhi, adding that all buses in Saudi Arabia look the same in terms of colors, project design and name on buses even though they are operated by different companies. Te program is being funded by the
government, which costs about $454 per student annually. So far there have been no objections made to the program. How- ever, there are some concerns about the long wait time for students that ride the second round of scheduled buses. In the future, Aldubikhi said he hopes to provide transportation for boys and female teach- ers as well. Based upon local customs, Saudi males and females are transported in separate vehicles. “Te lack of efficient public transport
systems, auto-oriented city developments, and severe traffic congestion during peak periods, are strong factors to be taken into consideration to justify expanding the school transport service provision,” added Aldubikhi. ■
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