The Kingdom has launched an air traffic control project with aircraft to identify and help ease bottlenecks on the major roads and highways in Riyadh and Jeddah.

The traffic department and the Ministry of Interior’s security aviation department launched the pilot project on Monday. The plan is to ensure traffic flows more smoothly during the morning, afternoon and evening rush hour periods.

Many cities across the Kingdom have heavily congested roads from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. when children go to school. Traffic peaks again in the afternoon from noon to about 1:30 p.m. and then once more in the evening from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m.

A study commissioned by government agencies found Jeddah’s roads total 564 km, of which 18 percent are highways and 18 percent major streets.

Abdul Aziz Al-Ghamdi, director of the Jeddah mayoralty’s road department, said there are more than 1 million vehicles on Jeddah’s roads, with people making 6 million journeys daily. “We expect that this number will reach 10 million daily trips by 2023,” he said.

“Once the projects on Jeddah’s roads are completed, the number of traffic signals will be reduced by 50 percent contributing to smoother vehicular movement. Recently, we removed 19 signals on several main streets, such as Palestine and Andalus. This has helped to reduce traffic congestion,” he said.

He said Jeddah’s rising population is causing the traffic problems, in addition to the long distances people have to commute to work. “This is complicated by the high usage of vehicles by individuals. There are 299 vehicles for every 1,000 people in Jeddah while in Riyadh the figure is slightly lower at 233 vehicles for the same number of people,” he said.

An earlier study revealed that car ownership in Saudi Arabia now stands at more than 349 vehicles for every 1,000 individuals. The average daily traffic in both directions on certain highways is more than 25,000 vehicles in Jeddah alone. On some major and critical junctions that average shoots up to more than 137,000 vehicles daily.

The study found that the lack of a proper public transport system has helped create a society dominated by cars. Currently, more than 86 percent of all journeys are taken in cars while 10 percent are via taxis and buses.