United Arab Emirates

Tuesday October 23rd, a delegation from the city of Abu Dhabi (UAE) visited Amsterdam for a series of presentations and cycle tour organized by the DCE.

Abu Dhabi is a city of 1.6 million people, but rapidly growing. It is expected to be at 2.6 million inhabitants by 2030. For this reason, the city of Abu Dhabi has developed a strategic cycle master plan, which proposes the current cycle network of 144 km to grow to a total of 1166 km by 2030. In light of this vision, a delegation of 4 city council representatives contacted the Dutch Cycling Embassy to visit the Netherlands.

Nick Brouwer, from ICAF, with experience with cycle path implementation in the Middle East initiated the day showing examples of recent projects in Saudi Arabia. Cornelia Dinca of BYCS showed the history and recent developments of cycling in Amsterdam, where MobiLock’s Peter Biczok continued about the future of mobility in cities. Jeroen Steenbakkers from The Urban Future gave a demonstration of their Virtual Reality based service for bicycle lane design. The day was concluded with a cycle tour around the centre of Amsterdam.