Eric Miller and Amer Shalaby from the Department of Civil Engineering are part of a worldwide group of transport engineers working with the Hajj Center of Research Excellence to find solutions to Mecca’s dense traffic, especially during the hajj, the world’s largest pilgrimage. The city is planning on developing a massive public transit system.

The engineers aim to design a complex system of transit routes that would alleviate  crowd control and chaos on the busy streets and turn Islam’s holiest city into a global model of how to handle masses of people in limited space.

Professor Shalaby is looking at gondola cable cars for rapid transit while Professor Miller is considering the lessons from high-density world events like the World Cup and the Vancouver Olympics for solutions to the issues of moving large numbers of people conveniently.

Click here to read the full story, as reported  in The Globe and Mail .