Long queues at petrol stations across Doha continue to take their toll on motorists, Gulf Times has learnt after driving around the city for nearly five hours on Thursday afternoon.
Following the closure of a number of privately-owned petrol stations in the recent past, the volume of vehicles has substantially increased at the existing ones in the city, it is found.
A staff member of a petrol station told Gulf Times that they had become “very busy” nowadays, especially after the 63-year-old Doha Petrol Station was shut on Wednesday.
“Every line extends to the road from morning to evening,” he said, pointing out that the situation had prompted the management to deploy additional workers at each fuel dispenser.
Queues at a petrol station along Al Waab Street was longer than usual, extending to the road and blocking the flow of traffic.
A similar situation was witnessed at various other petrol stations, including those along Najma, Al Thumama and Abu Hamour, which receive a large number of vehicles daily.
The numbers have surged, according to a worker at a petrol station in Najma, who was seen working at a blistering pace to expedite the refilling.
Despite such hectic effort, he stressed that the problem continued to persist due to the huge volume of vehicles. He believes the only option to effectively address the issue is to expand existing petrol stations or to build more.
The worker noted they now saw an increasing number of motorists who did refilling even early in the morning and late in the evening, which was not the case a few months ago.
With Doha Petrol Station serving an estimated 6,000 vehicles daily, this volume is expected to be distributed to the already packed petrol stations in other parts of Doha.
A motorist said that he only had two choices: either patiently wait for his turn during the day or wake up early to avoid long queues.
He also noted that refilling would now be frequent as vehicles normally consumed more fuel during the summer season when temperatures rose.
Besides motorists, other commuters are also bearing the brunt as public vehicles (such as taxis) are now taking more time to refill.
A number of residents, mostly office employees, feel a lot of time is wasted while queuing up.
Meanwhile, some taxi drivers who work at fixed timings also fail to meet their quota for the day, saying the traffic and refilling woes “are stealing our money”.