MORE than two million people each month have entered and exited Bahrain through King Fahad Causeway so far this year.

The statistics were revealed yesterday by King Fahad Causeway Security Directorate (Bahrain) head Colonel Khaled Rabae Al Dossary during the Interior Ministry’s weekly Al Amn radio show.

“According to our monitoring of travellers and vehicles at King Fahad Causeway, for the last 10 months we saw over two million travellers monthly and over 909,784 vehicles monthly,” he said.

“These are huge numbers compared to when the causeway was first established in 1986.

“(During special occasions) we have a specialised team co-ordinating between all authorities at the causeway.

“They hold meetings to discuss how to ease traffic on special occasions, including Umra.

“We also add patrols and officers on foot and in service areas in customs and passports to help ensure security.

“We also use security cameras and K9 units to protect the area, travellers and their vehicles.

“This will ease traffic flow despite the huge increase in numbers of travellers.

“The cases we get are usually drugs or illegal entry of people.”

Plans to increase customs cabins on the causeway to reduce traffic congestion were also discussed during the show by Tariq Isa Al Dossary, who heads the branch entry department.

“When King Fahad Causeway was established there were only four cabins for entry and four cabins for departure,” he said.

“Authorities then made 10 cabins due to extra traffic and now we have 19 cabins each in entry and departure.

“We will soon have 33 cabins each for entry and exit.

“Traffic has been caused by lack of space due to a large number of cars, though each traveller takes only seconds to finish procedures.

“We have a (contingency plan) that targets public holidays but last Friday between 12pm and 4.30pm we witnessed heavy traffic flow with up to 3,000 travellers, so we opened the entry and departure halls intended for public holidays to keep travellers happy.”