Mowasalat will be hosting the Second MENA Public Transport Congress and Showcase, in which around 700 participants, mostly from the Middle East and North Africa region, will participate. Ahmed Al Ansari, Business Development Director of Mowasalat, announced this on the sidelines of the UITP Bus Specifications meeting at the Grand Hyatt yesterday. To be held from October 25 to 27 at the Grand Hyatt, the biggest public transport event in the region will include talks, presentations and round-table discussions, Al Ansari said. With the theme ‘Public Transport in the MENA Region: Turning Ideas into Reality’ the conference will see discussion on topics such as challenges faced by public transport, integrating urban policies to optimise the benefits of public transport, and measures and policies to make public transport the choice of residents. The regional event is one of the biggest conferences being held by the International Association of Public Transport (UITP), which is an international network of public transport authorities and operators, policy makers, scientific institutes and the public transport supply and service industry, with over 3, 000 members from 90 countries. Al Ansari also disclosed that he, along with other Mowasalat officials, would be attending the 58th UITP World Congress and Mobility and City Transport Exhibition in Vienna, Austria from June 7 to 11. The meeting yesterday was the third in a row held by the working group, mainly to review the draft on ‘Guidelines for Bus Specifications and Tendering for the MENA Region’. “The purpose of this meeting was to set specifications for buses in the region, which can be used in the future by companies in tendering,” Al Ansari said, adding the agenda also included issues to be considered in manufacturing buses. Around 20 pubic transport operators and authorities, including industry suppliers and a UITP representative, participated in the discussion chaired by Huub Hendrikx, Chairman of UITP Business Forum and Exhibitors Commission. Mowasalat, along with some participants, including SAPTCO from Saudi Arabia and VanHool of Belgium, held presentations about its experience in bus specifications in their respective locales. http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=Local_News&subsection=Qatar+News&month=May2009&file=Local_News2009052721628.xml

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