JEDDAH: Makkah Gov. Prince Khaled Al-Faisal said that local transport projects should keep pace with the increasing number of pilgrims.
Prince Khaled recently chaired a meeting of the Makkah Region Development Authority, which was held with Rumaih Al-Rumaih, president of the Public Transport Authority (PTA) and Saudi Railways Organization (SRO).
Prince Khaled pointed out that Makkah transport projects should achieve their targets to facilitate the movement of pilgrims to and from the Grand Mosque.
He was briefed on the studies for a transport project in Makkah that will include 500 buses funded by the state, and span 12 lines.
Additionally, the Makkah metro project will be implemented in cooperation with the private sector. The first phase includes the green line, with a total length of 11 km and seven stations, and the red line with a total length of 31 km and 14 stations.
Prince Khaled: Makkah transport projects must keep pace with pilgrim numbers
Prince Khaled: Makkah transport projects must keep pace with pilgrim numbers
Saudi Arabia’s KAUST named FIFA’s first research institute in MENA
- KAUST President Prof. Sir Edward Byrne said that the university’s selection as the fifth FIFA Research Institute in the world — and the first in the region — marks a significant achievement, reflecting Kingdom’s growing presence in international football
RIYADH: FIFA has designated the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology as its first research institute in the Middle East and Asia to support the development of innovative football research, the Saudi Press Agency reported on Tuesday.
The recognition highlights KAUST’s commitment to integrating sports, academic research and industry through advanced, high-level initiatives grounded in rigorous scientific methodologies, contributing to the advancement of football studies.
KAUST President Prof. Sir Edward Byrne said that the university’s selection as the fifth FIFA Research Institute in the world — and the first in the region — marks a significant achievement, reflecting Saudi Arabia’s growing presence in international football.
The accreditation aligns with national efforts to invest in research and development and promote the knowledge economy, supporting Saudi Vision 2030’s goals of building an advanced sports system based on innovation and sustainability.
The collaboration’s first project focuses on developing advanced AI algorithms to analyze historical FIFA World Cup broadcast footage, transforming decades of match videos into structured, searchable data, according to the KAUST website.
This work opens new opportunities to apply state-of-the-art computer vision techniques and deepen understanding of how football has evolved over time.
The second project uses player and ball tracking data from the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar and the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 in Australia and New Zealand to compile comprehensive datasets capturing in-game dynamics.
These datasets provide deeper insights into human movement, playing techniques and performance dynamics through AI-driven analysis.
