Transport and Cities

Chapter Overview

1. Executive Summary

Iraq has become urban in its population structure. The 2024 general census recorded 46,118,793 people, 70.2% of them living in urban areas. This urban population is more than a demographic figure: it represents daily demand for land, housing, roads, buses, schools, hospitals, markets, water and energy. It is also an economic opportunity if cities are designed to reduce access costs and increase the density of interaction and production.¹

The baseline, however, shows that cities are growing faster than planning and mobility tools are being integrated. The National Development Plan 2024-2028 places an updated comprehensive transport plan, Baghdad Metro, rapid inter-governorate transport, stronger public transport, urban expansions, new cities and ring roads within broadly the same agenda. This matters because it reflects the connection between mobility and urban form. The plan also calls for attractive development nuclei in new cities so that they achieve economic independence rather than remain mere housing concentrations.²

Baghdad has begun gradually restoring its public bus network. In May 2025, the Ministry of Transport announced that 43 of 72 planned routes in the capital had opened, alongside consideration of electric buses. Meanwhile, Baghdad Metro remained a strategic project in preparation, evaluation and contracting through 2026, with an announced design of seven lines totalling approximately 150 km and 64 stations. This chapter therefore does not treat the metro as operational, nor reduce it to construction; it places it within a system of buses, walking, station connections, urban development, financing and operations.⁷⁸⁹

Safety is part of urban efficiency. The Statistics Authority recorded 11,763 traffic accidents in 2024 in the governorates covered by the report, resulting in 2,719 deaths and 11,896 injuries, with 66.7% of accidents occurring inside cities. These figures make speed, junctions, pedestrians, cycling, street design and enforcement part of urban transport policy, rather than a separate issue after a road has been built.⁶

For housing, the census alone cannot measure qualitative need. Combining census results with an overcrowding rate of 29.1% in the Household Socio-Economic Survey 2023-2024, the National Housing Policy 2025-2030 estimates a deficit of approximately 2.3 million units. It states that, since 2024, the Ministry of Construction has approved 21 new-city projects comprising approximately 765 thousand units, with eight additional projects awaiting approval comprising approximately 329 thousand units. This scale raises the chapter’s question from neighbourhood design to a major spatial, financial and environmental decision: where will these units be built, what jobs and services will accompany them, and how will residents travel?¹¹¹²

The governing argument is that transport and cities form one system. A road that increases car speeds but moves homes farther from jobs may increase total distance travelled. A new city providing 100 thousand homes without jobs, a university, a hospital or reliable mass transit may reduce housing pressure while increasing traffic pressure. A station built far from walking routes and services becomes a piece of infrastructure rather than an urban centre. Iraq Vision 2045 therefore adopts “accessibility” as the unit of measurement: how many minutes, what cost and what risks does a citizen face in reaching essential opportunities?

The proposed path begins in 2027-2030 by establishing real mobility baselines through travel surveys and data on speeds, accidents and land use, redesigning the bus network, and setting a common new-city standard that links approvals to water, energy, transport, services and an economic base. In 2031-2035, it moves to high-capacity public transport corridors, station-oriented development, regeneration of existing areas and upgrading of informal settlements. During 2036-2040, networks expand and transport and urban development financing becomes partly based on land values and operating revenues. By 2045, major cities become polycentric, and most essential journeys can be completed without full dependence on the private car.

2. The Central Question and the Chapter’s Scope

4.1 Central Question

What urban and transport model does Iraq need to accommodate population and urban growth through 2045 while reducing access time and cost, improving safety, providing housing, easing pressure on old centres, and preventing new cities from becoming isolated residential extensions dependent on cars and distant services?

4.2 What the Chapter Addresses

• Urban transport as an interconnected service network: walking; cycling where safe and appropriate; buses; bus rapid transit (BRT) where viable; urban rail and metro; and private cars in a regulated rather than dominant role.
• New cities and urban expansions: site selection, economic base, infrastructure and services, occupancy stages, connections to the existing city, and financial and operating capacity.
• Easing pressure on old cities through the spatial distribution of jobs and services, rehabilitation of centres, and management of parking, traffic and urban freight, rather than horizontal expansion alone.
• Urban planning, land use and linking the density of housing, employment and services to public transport corridors.
• Informal settlements and unplanned expansion in terms of integrating them into planning, transport and services and preventing new informal settlements.

4.3 What Is Left to Other Parts and Chapters

3. Operational Vocabulary and Measurement Rules

4. Iraq’s Urban Baseline

For the first time in decades, the 2024 general census provides a comprehensive demographic basis on which to recalibrate urban planning. A final population of approximately 46.119 million and an urbanisation rate of 70.2% mean that any national housing, transport and services policy is fundamentally a cities policy.¹Nevertheless, at this chapter’s cutoff there is no published unified national baseline for household travel surveys, modal shares, commuting time, public transport coverage, bus waiting times or the number of jobs reachable within 30 or 45 minutes. This is a knowledge gap, not a reason to invent figures.

The National Development Plan adds an important institutional picture: the Ministry of Planning does not treat the city simply as a land-use plan. Its Regional and Local Development Directorate is responsible for establishing an urban system of city sizes, preparing urban and rural development policies, reviewing structure plans, studying locations of new cities and urban settlements, and coordinating land uses with economic and social functions.³During 2024-2026, the Ministry also began updating planning standards for transport, housing and new-city site selection, incorporating density, connectivity, the economic base, services and environmental safeguards into assessment.⁴⁵

5. The Real Problem: An Access Gap, Not a Shortage of Roads

Road length can increase while access deteriorates. This occurs when land prices or expansion decisions push housing away from employment; when universities, hospitals and government offices concentrate in a few nodes; when the public transport network is poorly connected; or when reaching a station is itself difficult and unsafe. Residents then have to travel farther, increasing vehicle numbers, costs and time even if some junctions improve.

The Vision therefore distinguishes “mobility” from “accessibility”. Mobility measures movement, while accessibility measures the outcome for which people travel. One person may cover ten kilometres at higher speed but arrive after forty minutes because of parking and transfers, while another reaches work in twenty minutes from a mixed-use neighbourhood on a reliable bus. This is not merely an engineering difference; it affects household and economic productivity and equality of opportunity.

The access gap creates four types of cost: time costs that reduce hours for work, rest and education; financial costs of fuel, fares, maintenance and parking; social costs falling more heavily on women, young people, older people and those without cars; and economic costs to businesses through delayed workers and freight and a smaller accessible labour market. Transport policy thus becomes part of labour-market and productivity policy, rather than a separate service.

6. Urban Transport: The Hierarchy of Mobility and Choice

The Vision does not replace cars with a single mode. A modern city needs a functional hierarchy assigning each mode to what it does well. Walking is the first and last part of most journeys; buses are flexible and quick to scale; bus rapid transit can carry large volumes with a dedicated route, priority and good operations; rail and metro suit corridors with high, stable demand; and private cars remain an important option but become less efficient when used to carry every individual through a city’s most congested sections.

This hierarchy aligns with international transit-oriented development tools, which prioritise walking, cycling, mass transit and integrated land uses instead of treating the station as a stand-alone facility.¹⁹²⁰It is adapted to Iraq’s heat, street patterns, municipal capacity, security and financing stages. The requirement is not to copy a foreign city, but to make every mode part of one network, with one user interface and understandable information.

7. Buses and the Public Transport Network

The quickest route to better urban transport in the early years is not to wait for the metro. A bus network can expand faster, alter routes as demand changes and serve neighbourhoods that do not justify heavy rail. The Ministry of Transport’s announcement that 43 of 72 Baghdad routes were open in May 2025 signals the restoration of a public function that had declined.⁷But the Vision’s criterion is not the number of open routes: a route may exist on paper yet offer no practical option if frequency is unreliable, transfers difficult or stops unsafe.

The Vision proposes redesigning the network in Baghdad and major cities around three service types: high-frequency trunk routes along corridors; feeder routes connecting neighbourhoods to corridors and stations; and local or demand-responsive routes in low-density areas. A service standard must be published for every route: operating hours, maximum peak and off-peak headways, the proportion of scheduled trips operated, timetable deviation, loads and complaints.

8. Baghdad Metro and Urban Rail

Baghdad Metro is the largest potential urban project in this part, and therefore requires greater discipline than treating it as a modernisation symbol. The National Investment Commission’s announced design includes seven lines totalling approximately 150 km and 64 stations, workshops and control centres, under a design, build, operate, maintain, finance and transfer model.⁸During 2025-2026, review of bids, financial and technical criteria and the consultancy study continued, with a public–private partnership approach. At the chapter’s cutoff, the project was therefore not an operating network and the baseline must not be built as though it were complete.⁹

The Vision’s decision is to support high-capacity rail transport in Baghdad on the basis of demonstrated demand and financeable phases, subject to four conditions. First, prioritise corridors carrying the most residents, jobs and journeys, rather than a political distribution of lines. Second, design the bus network to feed stations rather than compete with them. Third, reserve walking and transfer space, organised parking and land with development potential around stations before construction. Fourth, calculate the state’s commitment over the project lifecycle—construction, energy, maintenance, renewal, operations, security and revenue—not construction cost alone.

The Vision does not adopt a publicised percentage reduction in congestion as a predetermined target, because metro effects depend on land-use behaviour, cars, buses, prices and parking. Even the best line may reduce traffic along a corridor only for the road to fill again if parking remains cheap and expansion distant. Success is measured after actual operations begin: actual passengers, time saved, access to jobs, shifts from cars, safety, reliability and a known subsidy cost.

9. Mass Transit Outside Baghdad

Not every Iraqi city needs a metro. Demand, urban form, street widths, locations of centres and universities, religious and tourism seasonality, and financial capacity differ greatly. The National Development Plan includes rapid transit between Najaf and Karbala among projects to begin, and the National Investment Commission announced an opportunity for Najaf–Karbala metro/rapid transit on a proposed 90 km route with four main stations, from Najaf Airport to central Najaf, then Karbala Airport and its centre.²¹⁰This illustrates the need to design transport around real demand patterns, including pilgrimage visits, airports and religious centres, rather than around the mode’s classification.

Iraq Vision 2045 uses a “technology selection ladder” instead of assuming every city needs rail. Where demand is moderate and dispersed, good buses and priority corridors may be the solution. A dense, stable corridor can move to BRT. When demand exceeds a certain level and the street’s capacity, rail becomes justified. Decisions are based on demand, time, cost, lifecycle, scalability and land-use effects.

10. Congestion: Manage Demand Before Adding Capacity

Widening a street or building a flyover may be necessary to address a specific bottleneck, but it is not a complete congestion policy. Increasing free capacity on an attractive corridor can draw trips from other routes, times and modes, after which congestion returns. Removing a local engineering bottleneck must therefore be distinguished from managing total urban demand.

The Vision proposes a package beginning with lower-cost measures: signal and junction management; preventing parking that blocks travel lanes; regulating loading and unloading; peripheral and interchange parking where strong public transport exists; shifting freight movements outside peak hours in sensitive centres; gradually introducing parking prices by location and time; and linking any new capacity to measures protecting public transport and pedestrians.

11. Road Safety: From Accidents to a Safe System

In 2024, 7,850 recorded accidents occurred inside cities, or 66.7% of the total 11,763 within the report’s scope, while deaths numbered 2,719 and injuries 11,896.⁶The report attributes 77.6% of accidents to drivers, but Iraq Vision 2045 rejects the inference that “driver awareness” alone is the answer. People make mistakes; system design must prevent ordinary mistakes from becoming deaths.

The safety system rests on safe speeds, separation of dangerous conflicts, pedestrian crossings, junction design, lighting and visibility, helmets, seat belts and enforced laws, emergency medical response and analysis of spatial accident data. The Baghdad Mayoralty, municipalities and traffic authorities must move from accident counts to “blackspot maps”, linking each location to engineering and enforcement measures and a timetable.

12. New Cities: When Are They Genuinely Cities?

Iraq needs substantial housing supply, but increased supply alone does not guarantee a successful city. The National Housing Policy 2025-2030 addresses housing within a broader framework of land, finance, infrastructure, sustainability and coordination, emphasising balanced urban and rural development, infrastructure improvement and upgrading informal areas.¹¹¹²In February 2026, the Ministry of Planning also set new-city location criteria covering target populations, housing need, reduction of spatial gaps, connections to existing cities, the economic base and environmental safeguards.⁴

Iraq Vision 2045 therefore adopts a strict definition: a new city is not a number of units. It is a living system capable of generating demand, employment and services within itself and connecting to the parent city without depending on it for every journey. Construction must therefore be preceded by a test of location, function, connectivity, water, energy, finance and operations. A cheap site creating permanent transport, water and service costs may cost the nation more than higher-priced land closer to networks and jobs.

13. Iraq’s New-City Portfolio and Decision Gates

The ongoing portfolio is large enough to affect national urban form. The National Housing Policy document refers to 21 new-city projects of approximately 765 thousand units since 2024, with eight additional projects awaiting approval of approximately 329 thousand units.¹²In Baghdad, implementation work for New Sadr City began in 2025 on approximately 4,000 dunums, with 60 thousand planned units and an infrastructure phase serving 11 thousand units.¹³The Ministry of Construction previously announced that Ali Al-Wardi City was planned for 120 thousand units.¹⁴These figures illustrate scale, rather than judge the success of any project before operation.

The Vision’s decision is to manage these projects as a portfolio with stop and correction gates, rather than irreversible commitments. Every city is reviewed annually against five indicators: occupied units, not only built units; jobs and services that have begun operating; access time to major employment centres; the share of infrastructure ready before occupancy; and the future fiscal burden on the state. If a city fails to create a basis for urban life, later stages are revised rather than continuing to add units to an incomplete place.

The million-housing-unit initiative announced in 2026 aligns with this logic if understood as a combination of new cities, land for property developers and serviced investment developments, rather than a numerical race. In July 2026, the Ministry of Agriculture stressed selecting non-productive land close to city centres and preventing the destruction of farmland and orchards.¹⁵¹⁶This is an important rule: urban expansion must protect food and water capacity as much as it solves the housing problem.

14. Easing Pressure on Existing Cities

Easing pressure does not mean administratively stopping Baghdad or other major cities from growing. It means reducing the need for residents to pass through the same centres for employment and services, and using existing land and infrastructure more efficiently before continuing to extend the city. The National Development Plan itself calls for attractive development nuclei in new cities, ring roads and connections between new and existing cities, reflecting an approach that distributes growth rather than merely pushes it outward.²

The Vision works at three levels. Within old centres, parking, freight and public space are reorganised, with walking and public transport prioritised where areas cannot accommodate more cars. Within existing neighbourhoods, vacant land and degraded sites are developed and density increased along serviceable corridors instead of unplanned expansion. At the edges, real employment and service centres connected to transport are built, gradually turning the city into a network of centres rather than a single axis.

15. Informal Settlements: Upgrading Places and Preventing Recurrence

The National Development Plan recorded 624,864 informal housing units through 2022, including 148,514 in Baghdad.²This figure does not mean that every unit or settlement can be treated in the same way. The national roadmap for addressing informal settlements, discussed by the Ministry of Planning and UN-Habitat in 2024, is based on legal/technical, financial, institutional and coordination frameworks. It calls for mapping and feasibility studies to determine whether redevelopment, rehabilitation or resettlement is the most appropriate intervention.¹⁷

Iraq Vision 2045 adopts “upgrading first where safe and serviceable”. If a settlement is on land capable of regularisation and does not conflict with flood risk, an infrastructure corridor or a critical public right, priority goes to establishing the feasible legal status, connecting services, opening access and gradually improving streets and public space with community participation. Unsafe sites or those impossible to service require organised relocation to a real alternative before clearance, protecting housing rights, compensation and due process.

More important is preventing new informal settlements. They arise when land is allocated without services, plans lag behind population growth, formal housing becomes unaffordable or serviced land is withheld from the market. Informal settlements are therefore linked to land, finance, housing and transport policies, rather than simply a municipal enforcement campaign. The National Housing Policy itself proposes a national informal-settlement upgrading programme, expanded infrastructure and services, and reduced unnecessary displacement.¹²

16. Urban Planning: Linking Land Use to Transport

The purpose of a master plan is not to colour in land uses and then leave markets and transport to shape reality on their own. The Ministry of Planning itself tasks its directorates with studying city sizes and economic and social functions, reviewing plans, and assessing project and new-city locations.³The requirement for 2045 is to turn this function into an “accessibility budget”: every decision on density, a university, hospital, government complex or major market must explain how people will reach it.

The chapter adopts four rules. First, no high density without transport and service capacity. Second, no major public investment generating thousands of trips at a site without an access plan. Third, major jobs and services are located, as far as possible, along public transport corridors or bear the cost of connection. Fourth, master plans are not updated only after long intervals; flexible layers for corridors and priority development areas are used with regular data review.

17. Connecting Housing to Employment and Services

Cheap housing in a place expensive to reach may not actually be affordable. A family pays the housing price, then pays transport and time costs every day. The Vision therefore uses the “combined cost of housing and mobility” to assess new cities and subsidised housing projects. If a project reduces the unit price but requires a household to own two cars or travel for two hours, part of the subsidy has shifted from housing to fuel and time.

The National Housing Policy connects housing to infrastructure, sustainability and balanced development, while the World Bank defines TOD as clustering employment, housing and services around public transport in a compact, walkable environment.¹²¹⁹²⁰Iraq Vision 2045 translates this into two national standards: nearby daily services within the neighbourhood or local centre, and jobs and higher-level services reachable within a reasonable time by public transport.

This does not mean abolishing urban specialisation or requiring each neighbourhood to be self-sufficient. Referral hospitals, universities and large factories will remain regional facilities. The requirement is that the simplest need should not become a long journey, and access to major opportunities should not depend on owning a private car.

18. Transit-Oriented Development (TOD)

Transit-oriented development is not a superficial design formula. The World Bank defines it as planning that concentrates density and activities within a short walk of rapid transit, integrating transport, land use, design and finance. The 3V framework uses three dimensions to determine what suits each station area: the node’s value in the network, place quality and market potential.¹⁹²⁰

In Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, TOD can help finance infrastructure if development rights are reserved early. A metro or BRT station raises nearby land values by improving access. Instead of the entire increase becoming private gain unconnected to the project, part can be captured through development charges, auctions of building rights, joint development agreements or better municipal property revenue, while protecting existing residents from displacement.

19. The Urban Environment, Heat and Resilience

Iraq is a hot country, so importing walking standards from temperate cities is insufficient. Walkability depends on shade, pavement width, suitable trees, paving materials, water points, resting places, shelter at stops and the time of day. A bus or metro station must become part of heat-protection infrastructure, rather than just a small canopy.

A compact city does not mean indiscriminate densification. Density that reduces distances can increase heat islands if trees, open spaces and airflow disappear. The chapter therefore links densification to minimum public space and access to parks, protection of drainage and floodwater routes, and application of building and energy standards addressed elsewhere.

New-city site selection must also incorporate water, heat, soil and flood risks from the outset. In 2026, the Ministry of Planning included environmental safeguards, carrying capacity, connectivity and services in discussions of site criteria.⁴Iraq Vision 2045 turns this from a recommendation into an auditable approval gate.

20. Urban Governance and Institutions

A city is not managed by a single entity. In Baghdad, the Mayoralty, Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Construction, traffic authorities, Baghdad Governorate, National Investment Commission and service entities intersect; arrangements differ in other governorates. Multiple entities are not intrinsically a defect. The defect is that no one owns the outcome of “access time”, “transport reliability” or “new-city integration”.

The Vision proposes establishing or activating urban transport coordination bodies at metropolitan level, starting with Baghdad—not as a new ministry, but as a joint function with data, a network plan, contracts, fare and station standards, and land-use integration. Asset ownership and operations remain distributed according to law, while planning, data and outcomes are brought into one framework.

21. Data and the Urban Accessibility Observatory

The largest gap in this chapter is not a lack of projects; it is the absence of a unified urban baseline showing where Iraqis travel, how long trips take, by which mode and what share of income they consume. Current data are scattered across traffic, transport, planning, municipalities, telecommunications operators and apps. The Vision does not need all data gathered into one huge central warehouse; it needs a dictionary, indicators and lawful sharing of necessary data.

An “Urban Accessibility Observatory” is established as a data function, not a bloated institution. It begins in Baghdad and three pilot metropolitan areas, combining a household travel survey every 3-5 years, passenger and bus counts, journey-time data, geolocated accidents, pavement and crossing networks, land uses, job and service locations, and housing and transport prices. It publishes aggregated outputs that protect privacy.

22. Financing and Land-Value Capture

Urban transport and new cities create substantial land value, but the traditional model can leave the state paying for roads, stations and infrastructure while property appreciation remains outside the financing cycle. Iraq Vision 2045 shifts part of the financing to “those benefiting from accessibility value”, while protecting affordability.

Instruments include developer infrastructure contributions, betterment or development charges in defined areas, joint development of public land around stations, transparent auctions of additional building rights, parking revenues, operating and advertising contracts, and PPPs where risks can be allocated. The World Bank includes land-value capture and financing in TOD tools, while emphasising in practice that their success depends on planning, markets and governance.¹⁹²⁰

For new cities, Iraqi investment opportunity announcements have already required financing plans, feasibility studies, implementation phases, shares of units for the state and performance guarantees in some projects.²²The Vision builds on this direction but extends the test to infrastructure operating costs after handover and the city’s ability to generate municipal revenue and maintain assets.

23. The Iraqi City in 2045

The Vision does not assume one uniform Iraqi city by 2045. Baghdad will need a layered mass-transit network and secondary centres; Basra must integrate industry, the port, heat and mobility; Mosul must link reconstruction to centres and riverbanks; Najaf and Karbala must address seasonal demand and connections between the two cities; and medium-sized cities need to protect accessibility before congestion becomes a major problem.

There are, however, shared characteristics. The Iraqi city in 2045 knows where people live and work and how they travel; places jobs and services near transport; makes short walks safe; gives buses space proportionate to the people they carry; manages cars rather than fighting them or making them the only option; holds new cities accountable for occupancy, employment and service rather than construction alone; and treats informality as a failure of land, housing and service systems to be corrected, rather than a social identity of residents.

24. Transformation Stages, 2027-2045

25. Indicators and Targets Dashboard

The following targets are proposed policy commitments, not forecasts. Where a unified national baseline does not exist, it is established in 2027-2028 before setting intermediate values. Missing entries are not filled with estimates.

26. Implementation Programme Package

27. Implementation, Cost and Financing Matrix

The chapter does not set one national cost figure because Baghdad Metro alone could change the portfolio’s financial scale, and the number and phases of new cities are not fixed. The rule is that every capital programme moves from an “idea” to a “project” only after a feasibility study, lifecycle costing, a financing source and a clear operating commitment. Megaprojects are not combined into a Vision total for rhetorical purposes.

28. Risks and Safeguards

29. Conclusion and the Bridge to Internet and Digital Infrastructure

This chapter establishes a different foundation for urban policy in Iraq: we begin not by asking “How many roads, flyovers and cities will we build?”, but “How many opportunities and services will become easier, faster and safer to reach?”. This principle does not diminish the importance of major infrastructure; it makes it accountable for an outcome. Buses are measured by journey reliability, the metro by the people and opportunities it connects, new cities by occupancy, employment and services, and urban planning by reduced unavoidable distances between daily life and opportunities.

During 2027-2045, Iraq moves from addressing congestion project by project to managing an urban system: a hierarchical public transport network, polycentric cities, strict expansion gates, informal-settlement upgrading, and housing linked to employment and services. Success reduces economic costs, improves equality of opportunity, frees household time, protects land and water and reduces deaths.