Future of Transportation in Palestine: What Needs to be Done?

Abstract

The roads and transportation sector in Palestine has been facing many challenges, mainly due to the prolonged Israeli occupation, which hindered it from playing its intended role in socio-economic development and in providing reliable mobility and accessibly services in a safe and efficient manner. In response to that, the general development framework of the comprehensive multimodal transportation plan for Palestine is presented, with the identification of its vision, goals, objectives, and key strategies. This has formed the basis to present what needs to be done in the key fields that include traffic safety, sustainable transportation, and smart transportation. The paper outlines the urgent need to develop a sustainable transportation system that improves mobility and safety, and utilize the new intelligent transportation technologies in traffic management and control. The paper concludes by highlighting the necessity to have a robust institutional framework and stakeholder collaboration in order to achieve the intended outcome towards a successful national strategy in developing the sector with proper funding mechanisms and policy guidance.