Kabul city transportation system analysis and the short-term and long-term transportation planning & policy

Abstract

The world has witnessed a great increase in motorization, urbanization, population growth and changes in population density over the past few decades. These changes have resulted in heavily congested roads. Congestion reduces efficiency of transportation systems and increases travel time, air pollution and fuel consumption. Kabul, the capital and business center of Afghanistan, is the most populated and congested city in Afghanistan. The increase in population and population density of the city has resulted in increased motorization, hence traffic congestions and air pollution. In this paper the main causes for congestions in Kabul City are studied and the solutions for congestion problems in Kabul City are suggested through case studies of Brazil and India. From the regression of delay time as dependent and the number of vehicles as independent variable, it has been found that delay time has a positive relationship with number of vehicles (increase in the number of vehicles results in increase in congestion), which suggests that effort should be made to reduce the number of vehicles (specifically private cars) in the city. From this study it has been found that one of the vital problems related to transportation in Kabul City is the absence of an independent organizing body to manage overall transportation network in Kabul city. As a solution for this problem a new organizing body is suggested that will be in charge of arranging, directing and overseeing the public transport system and will in future steps facilitate the integration of the public transportation system beside central dispatching, a common ticketing and other offices.