2nd Middle East Conference & Exhibition on Intelligent Transport Systems to be held in Bahrain

With unique status and support from the Arab League, the two-day conference is organised by ITS Arab and will takes place on 14 and 15 April 2008 in Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain.

Conference key speakers include:
- His Excellency Eng. Fahmy Al-Jowder, Minister of Works, Kingdom of Bahrain
- His Excellency Eng Abdullah Al Mogbel, ITS-Arab President and Deputy Minister of Transport, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
- His Excellency Mohammed Safadi, Minister of Works and Transportation, Lebanon,
- Dr. Essam Sharaf, former Minister of Transport, Egypt
- Dave Wetzel, Vice-Chair of Transport for London, United Kingdom
- Partick Sewell, Head of Strategy Development, Highways Agency, United Kingdom
- Eng. Salah Al-Marzouqi, Director of ITS, Dubai RTA, UAE
- Eng. Essam Khalaf, Assistant Undersecretary, Monistry of Works, Kingdom of Bahrain
- Eng. Tariq Gosty, Director of Traffic & Safety, Ministry of Transport, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
- Fabrizio Minarini, Head of Unit, European Commission, Belgium
- Friedhelm Bertelsmeir, Head of Unit, Ministry of Transport, Germany

The event is the main networking and ITS strategy drive in the region with specialists from across the Middle East, North Africa and from around the world.

Expert speakers will focus on building on the success of the first conference held in Dubai, which established the foundation and identified a critical requirement for:
- A clear ITS roadmap to assist with both decision-making and provide direction to ITS policy and technical development
- A structured marketing/education on ITS benefits, with a clear links to transport strategies, policies, transport engineering and the general public.

The Conference will focus on understanding and 'Setting the Roadmap' to tackle traffic congestion, road safety, security and the environment.

In addition to presenting the conference outcome to the Executive Office of Arab Transportation, the outcome is also planned as an input to a number of regional studies, seminars and workshops as part of the rapid drive to accelerate ITS deployments across the Middle East and North Africa.

The event is sponsored by The Kingdom of Bahrain Ministry of Works, Saudi Ministry of Transport, Dubai Roads & Transport Authority, Siemens and Hyder Consulting as Gold Sponsors with support from ITS Arab members.

"The event will also provide an excellent ITS training and networking platform to the wider government officials, which are essential to enable and sustain ITS development and deployments in our region said Engineer Essam A. Khalaf, Assistant Undersecretary, Ministry of Works, Kingdom of Bahrain"

His Excellency Engineer Abdullah Al-Mogbel, ITS-Arab President and Deputy Minister of Transport, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia said: "ITS-Arab's positive impact is now well recognised. This is an excellent progress when considering that ITS-Arab is simply progressing the mobilisation section of the forward plan".