Strategic public transport planning in Baghdad.

Author(s)
Clark, J.M. & Oxley, P.R.
Year
Abstract

Earlier transportation planning studies of the Baghdad City Region developed traffic and transport forecasts for the year 2000, by which time the population was expected to have reached 6.5 million. The initial proposals were that the city which has a very dispersed land use pattern should rely entirely on road-based (bus and taxi) services for its public transport. This proposal was unacceptable to the Iraqi government, which had concurrently with the later stages of the general transport studies, commissioned additional research into the planning and construction of a heavy rail (metro) system. The government took the view that a wholly road-based system was inappropriate for a major capital city and a final revision of the earlier general study was made to include a two line metro system. Since that original study, new research and consultancy work has started, with planning end-dates of 2000 and 2015. This work initially concentrated primarily on urban and regional demographic, economic and land-use issues, but latterly has begun a review of the earlier transport studies. The review was required for two main reasons: (1) due to changes in government policies on the future permitted growth of Baghdad city, and due to reduced forecasts of population, the city is not now expected to reach the size originally forecast for the year 2000 until the year 2015; and (2) concern that, given a reduced level of population, a heavy metro system might no longer be necessary and that other options, particularly light rail, that had not been considered in the earlier studies, should now be examined. In this paper the transport planning and evaluation processes carried out during 1989/ 1990, the objectives of which are to plan an integrated public transport system for Baghdad are described. Examination is made of the potential users for light rail systems either as the principal mass-transit system or as a supplement/ feeder to a heavy rail system. Particular emphasis is placed on the development of methods to compare at a strategic level a wide range of alternative public transport combinations against variations in land-use and population scenarios.

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Publication

Library number
C 832 (In: C 829 [electronic version only]) /72 / IRRD 845043
Source

In: Public transport in developing countries : proceedings of seminar L (P338) held at the 18th PTRC European Transport and Planning Summer Annual Meeting, University of Sussex, England, September 10-14, 1990, p. 47-55, 2 ref.

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