Abstract
Many cities around the world have gone through unique development stages over centuries. Each with their dynamic evolutionary changes to adapt to the most current mobility needs of the people and to ensure a sustainable future. Most cities started with the humble horse and cart to move people and goods. Many are now looking to convert to Smart Cities and using new advance technologies part of the 4th Industrial Resolution. MaaS became a new focus with many new ideas, research and technologies already linked to it. This to improve people's mobility options and to resolve the traffic and pollution problems. The reality is that building more roads, can also create new problems. But without new infrastructure there is also problems with future growth due to the need for population and economic growth. This case study specifically looks at Qatar's Public Works Authority's Doha Expressway Programme consisting out of multiple new major road projects. This to form the bases to evaluate and determine how a newly created urban road network can be gradually changed to make it future ready, more livable and human centric with a better healthier environment. The aim is to find new ways to reverse engineer the newly created urban road network by reducing the road lane widths in the available Right of Ways. This will release new space for adding more green landscape areas and pedestrian and cycle paths. In a city with a hot desert environment, more green spaces are necessary. It can also help to keep the city air cleaner. Much of Doha City's new road network upgrades were built to serve the current traffic demand. This can also be linked to specific transport habits and behavioral patterns. To resolve the existing traffic problems, due to the forecasted population being reached a decade too earlier, many new roads had to be build. The focus now should be to look at what was created already and to reverse engineer the road network. This to find the parts that need to be changed to allow for a better balance of all modes of transport and recreate the urban Right of Way space and to adjust transport behavioral patterns. This case study focus on determining if the modes of travel and the time and distance to travel for work, can be changed. The case study also aims to find ways to optimize the Right of Way Corridor spaces. Following the current observations and reports from the Covid-19 worldwide lockdowns, it became evident that travel-to-work habits need to be studied further. This can be considered as part of reverse engineering the city's urban road network. Much space is used in the Right of Way Corridors to shift single use vehicles from one stationary position at home, to another at work. Vehicles then stays for hours in a location, until it is used again to recreate traffic and pollution. Reverse engineering urban road networks can help to provide options to reduce traffic and recover more urban space for people. By considering how to reuse or reverse engineer the urban road networks, new green areas, pedestrian and cycle paths can be added. This can also include phasing in more autonomous electric vehicle lanes and public transport corridors, with the goal of shifting away from single vehicle use and ownership.
