Toward a Sustainable Mobility System in Middle East Cities: The Case of Erbil City, Iraq

Abstract In the Middle East, a sustainable mobility system is crucial for sustainable development. However, there is a scarcity of quantitative investigations on sustainable transport indicators in the region, despite their significance to scholars. The central focus of this paper is to execute two objectives: firstly, to construct a comprehensive set of sustainable transport indicators by reviewing 71 studies that highlight sustainable transportation. Following that, these indicators will undergo quantitative evaluation through normalization and scoring on a scale of 0 to 10. These scores will then be utilized to compare Middle East cities with the Kurdistan Region, the European Union, and the world. The study database was developed using two distinct sources. The primary source consists of original articles published in reputable scientific journals, while the secondary source consists of open-source government datasets and data from international organizations. According to the proposed indicators, Erbil City has a sustainability score that exceeds the average for cities in the Middle East. However, at the country level, the Kurdistan Region’s sustainability score is lower than the Middle East average, while the European Union excels at both city and country levels. Ultimately, potential policies were suggested to reinforce sustainable development in the region.