Are Oman’s Cities Ready for What Comes Next?

Whenever a new technology comes along, we usually talk about what it can do for us today. We do not always stop to ask what our cities might need if that technology becomes part of everyday life.
Oman’s new electric vehicle charging fees, which take effect on October 1, brought me back to a question I first asked seven years ago. Electric cars were only beginning to gain attention in the Middle East then, but I was already wondering what would happen when charging them was no longer unusual. Who would pay for it? Where would drivers plug in? Would our homes, offices, shopping centres and motorways be ready?
Now we have part of the answer. Using a public charger will cost between 50 and 120 baisa per kilowatt-hour, depending on its power. The charges make prices clearer and give companies a reason to invest in more stations.
Parking is a good example. Muscat has had building regulations since at least the 1970s, introduced a major building order in 1992 and regulated public parking in 1997. Oman’s 2026 Urban Planning Law now specifically includes car parks, their dimensions and the facilities required around buildings.
What once seemed like spare ground beside a building eventually became something cities had to plan, measure, manage and sometimes charge people to use.
Electric transport needs the same forward thinking. Roads that can charge vehicles while they are moving are real, although they are still being tested and may be expensive to introduce widely. Trials abroad have placed wireless charging equipment beneath the road. It sounds far-fetched, but so would the idea of holding a piece of metal and glass in our hands and using it to speak to someone on the other side of the world.
Then there is the question of what comes after electric cars.
Electric air taxis capable of carrying passengers are already being tested. Dubai is preparing special landing and charging sites known as vertiports. Should Oman start seriously considering where similar facilities might safely fit? Should new districts leave flexible spaces before land becomes scarce and rebuilding becomes costly?
This does not mean covering Muscat with “dronepads” tomorrow. We cannot prepare for every invention someone imagines. But we can design buildings, car parks, electricity networks and regulations that are easier to adapt when useful technologies become real.
The charging fee should start a much bigger conversation. Clean energy is not simply about replacing petrol pumps with plugs. It is about imagining how people will travel, where their energy will come from and what our cities will need to support them properly.
The future rarely arrives all at once. A well-planned city makes room for it before it fully arrives.