Planning of National Transport Infrastructure
In the Islamic Countries
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 Well-guided spatial development with high spatial quality
 Contemporary land use system with smart integrated mobility
 Well preserved natural environment and cultural heritage
 Food security and resilient water systems
 Climate change and energy transition
 Health and well-being
The ONSS process is on going and will be completed in 2019. The ONSS will be developed in a
simultaneous manner as Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS) on a regional level and ONSS on a
national level to be aligned with the Vision 2040. The idea is to achieve compatible planning
between the country and its governorates. This is to ensure a final consolidated vision and
obtain with relevant planning standards and tools in a place ready to be utilized in an
implementation framework. The implementation framework is expected to guide planning
activities at all levels:
The first step involved an extensive primary data collection exercise related to social, economic
and land use aspects, the stakeholders were intensively involved, highlighting current issues
and future solutions. The second step involved the development of a number of plausible
national scenarios, based both on the regional key topics and international trends. After
stakeholder consultation, which is mostly government agencies, the SCP will formulate the
preferred spatial direction for the Sultanate. This will be the base for further elaboration of the
specific strategies on regional and national levels. This in turn will be debated with both national
and regional stakeholders and the final strategies will be approved by the SCP council, before
being endorsed by Al-Shura and the Council of State.
As mentioned before, the national transport plan is considered to be a list of infrastructure
projects and as such one would not expect there to be mention of public transport systems, this
is because public transport planning is considered to be a local government matter. Reference
is made to the public transport plan proposed for Muscat that includes the following features:
 Trunk services: bus routes which provide public transport services along the main mobility
corridors of Muscat to provide future development corridors
 Feeder services that operate on medium-density areas, serving the end-of-route terminals
and intermediate stations of the trunk services.
 Direct services where end to end demand is high
 Reorganization of the taxi and microbuses as complementing public transport,
 Restructuring of the taxis to achieve higher quality services using online services such as
Uber
 New licensing regulations
 Densification of urban areas and land use integration with public transport.
 Improvement in pedestrian spaces to promote walking and facilitate the access and egress
to public transport.
 Private vehicle restraint including parking charges in the short term and possibly area road
user charging in the longer term.
 Traffic management measures