The 24th International Traffic Medicine Association (ITMA) Congress concluded in Doha yesterday. The next ITMA congress will be held in Beijing.
Brigadier Mohamed Abdullah al-Malki, secretary general of the National Committee for Road Safety of Qatar and chairman of the Organising Committee, and Dr Lars Englund, president of ITMA, attended the closing ceremony.
During the closing ceremony, the ITMA president announced the winner of this year’s ITMA award, Professor Michael from Michigan University, US.
Professor Michael has carried out research studies on traffic, vehicles, road safety, environment, demographic changes and monitoring vehicles.
“The main objective of this congress is providing a platform for all experts from around the world and I wish that the congress will contribute to decreasing traffic accidents in Qatar during the coming years,” Dr Englund said.
Brigadier al-Malki pointed out that the ITMA congress was organised to develop a professional mechanism which deals with various traffic aspects, transportation sects and search for priorities of development needs and future visions.
The exhibitions on the side-lines of the event displayed several local and global innovations and introduced the entrepreneurial experiences and best practices.
“The three-day conference would realise in developing effective implementation campaigns for national strategy of traffic safety. The key objective of the National Traffic Safety Committee is to reduce the death rate from traffic accidents from 14 per 100,000 to six by 2022.
“The national strategy has already accomplished astonishing results as the rate was reduced to 8.5 in 2014.”
He added that the development stages include strengthening road safety through implementing the objectives of the sustainable development adopted by UN General Assembly, improving the current midterm review, replacing the traditional methods with modern methods, making necessary updates based on past experiences and  developing local innovations and performance index with a national delivery oriented approach.
The official pointed out that the National Traffic Safety Committee and National Traffic Safety Office would work to develop the capability of the concerned authorities.
He also told that all bodies should do their best to implement the strategies of National Vision-2030 within the stipulated period.
Brigadier al-Malki and Dr Englund honoured and awarded certificates to speakers and experts at the closing ceremony.