Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Institute for Hajj and Umrah Research at Umm Al-Qura University in collaboration with the security sectors, Makkah Emirate and the relevant authorities organized a discussion panel under the title " Crowd Management in the Grand Mosque", in the presence of the Dean of the Institute Dr. Hamza Ghulman and the representatives of the participating bodies. The event took place at the research tenet in the Institute's headquarters in Azizia.  

 
The Dean of Hajj Institute, Dr. Hamza Ghulman said; this discussion panel is meant to strengthen relations between the research bodies and those working in the field to help the research process, in the field of crowd management in the Grand Mosque, the surrounding areas and roads leading to it, reaching the highest rankings and to develop control mechanism of the crowd movements in a scientific manner according to the directives of the wise leadership to upgrade services provided for the pilgrims starting from their arrival to the Kingdom until their departure to their countries healthily and safely. 

He added that the discussion panel discussed current status related to flow rates on the roads leading to the grand mosque and  intensity rates inside the Grand mosques and the surrounding areas  besides defining crowd sites inside the central area, listing causes of crowd, documenting resulting events and procedure implemented by those in charge of the operational plan. 

Within the same vein, Dr. Ghulman said several proposals to overcome shortcomings of the last year's Ramadan and Hajj seasons were submitted including; activating and developing operational plans of the crowd locations particularly in the central area by such means of applying the joint management system related to field teams of the different parties involved in the plan implementation, introducing modern support technologies, activating the operational plans, maintaining human density at suitable levels by defining the targeted numbers of pilgrims inside the Grand Mosque,  Mattaf and the external yards, setting human masses control points at the roads, pass ways, yards, entrances, gates and the sides of Mattaf, besides re-planning the central area in such manner that ensures distribution and direction of the flows to the different axes of the area to enable controlling them, distributing the masses to the different locations, increasing the accommodation capacity of the current axes and provide them with services as well as creating new axes  to help increasing the accommodation capacity of the roads to reduce flow rates.    

 
He went on to say that a proposal to link the central area directly with the external ring roads was submitted, besides providing car parking and services and connecting different floors of the Grand Mosque with suspended bridges directly linked to the arrival areas, the proposed transportation  stations and the current sites of picking up and discharging passengers.  

At the conclusion, Dr. Ghulman explained that they have agreed on several recommendations and axes with the relevant bodies which included intensifying efforts and cooperation with the parties involved in the crowd management in the Grand Mosque, surrounding areas and roads leading to it. He lauded the permanent and ongoing cooperation of the related bodies, the thing which enabled research teams from the Institute to monitor and analyze crowd movement in many locations inside the Grand Mosque and the surrounding area, besides the pilgrims' movement from and to the Grand Mosques and the Holy Sites. He also lauded the support attached to the Institute by the President of the University Dr. Bakri Assas thus enabling it to undertake the assigned tasks.