Sustainable Indicators for Public Transportation: Assessment Model for Jeddah City Case Study

Abstract

Jeddah city is the second largest city in Saudi Arabia, due to its unique geographic location and the massive increase of the demographic density, as result of a rapid urban expansion there is a rising need to enhance the city’s transportation infrastructure. Furthermore, the urbanization has affected the streets safety, due to the significant increase in the use of motorization, reflected in a high level of traffic and dependence on the private vehicle. Hence, contributed in the decline of city sustainability leading to several urban issues such as: air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and economic downfalls. Although city transportation system is a vital pillar for the quality of life of the citizens, shading the light, that most of the cities, rely on public and private transportation and consider it as a key mode of commuting and logistics. Consiquensly, smart cities rely on using digital technology for smarter urban transport networks. Using resources which are more efficient and upgrades city utilities. Therefore, smart can be an innovative networked way of bringing together existing technology and resources to optimize their use through an integrated transport model. Consequently, this research attempts to investigate Sustainable Transportation Indicators in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. To ensure that the planned systems are following the international standards. Jeddah city is facing a Lack of quality and safe public transportation. The research aims to adopt economically viable, people-oriented and environment-friendly transport systems as a part of the sustainable development within the city. Moreover, this research adopts multiple strategies of quantitative and qualitative data collection techniques to achieve its goals and objectives. By exploring the application of smart transportation models within the city of Jeddah. Additionally, the result of the research is a set of sustainable indicators to assess sustainability in Jeddah’s transportation system. The indicators bring together; a combination between the various aspects of sustainability including; social, economic and environmental factors which contribute to the city development.