Waiting time for trucks coming to Bahrain through King Fahd Causeway reduces to 52 mins from 12 hours 37 mins

TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Truck drivers coming to Bahrain through the King Fahd Causeway can now heave a sigh of relief. They no longer had to wait in the excruciatingly long queues on the causeway, which took up to 12 hours to clear.

King Fahd causeway, which reportedly had a reputation for some of the worst traffic jams in the Middle East, had become smoother and faster. In other words, trucks making beelines on the King Fahd Causeway for clearance is becoming a thing of the past. The latest data shows, the average waiting time for a truck reaching Bahrain through the causeway has come down to 52 minutes.

Customs clearance in less than an hour is a tremendous leap for the causeway, where truck drivers had to wait for more than 12 hours. “This is a huge achievement”, Shaikh Ahmed bin Hamad Al Khalifa said, compared to the previous years.

According to the Head of Customs, the average waiting time for trucks in the first half of August was 52 minutes, compared to 757 minutes earlier. “For this, the authority took several measures in the past years, including signing agreements with supervisory authorities,” he added.

The release time was decreased gradually to 52 minutes through various measures taken from 2014 to 2021. He also thanked all the relevant authorities, importers, traders and customs officials for their cooperation in making this possible.

Officials, he said, made efforts to prepare necessary data and received customs duties ahead of the arrival of the shipments to ensure smooth movement of trucks.

Reports said earlier that the King Fahd Causeway and Tabadul had rolled out a new truck management scheme to reduce waiting times. The system works by allowing trucks to book a slot in advance through Tabadul’s Fasah platform. The system was put into place on the causeway from the Saudi side in January this year.