TOWARDS PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION AND INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM: NAJAF CITY AS A CASE STUDY

الملخص

Najaf-Kufa road suffers from high congestion, especially at morning peak hour in the direction coming from Al-Najaf city towards Al-Kufa city (for 95% from its length) in addition to the other major roads in the city. This could be easily attributed to high trips coming to different destinations (i.e universities, schools, hospitals, courts, etc) distributed along the road without using modern public transportation such as scheduled buses, Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and light train or tram. Furthermore, the other roads also suffer from congestion such as Airport road, Garage Shamalee, Najaf-Abu Skher, etc.  This study aims to investigate the merits of using public transportations and suggest new means of public transportation in Al-Najaf city in accordance with the fundamental design for the city. The GIS program has been adopted to determine the suggested major routes for scheduled buses, BRT and tram with new network for public transportation. Different trip generation and distribution have been investigated such hospital, schools and universities using GIS.  Moreover, the suggested intelligent transportation system also has been included in this study.