An Overview of Challenges and Plans to Improve Urban Mobility: A Case of Approach and Strategies in Tehran

The world's population is trending up, while a striking proportion of it resides in urban areas. Today, with the development of urbanization and the deficiency of sustainable transport infrastructure in most developing cities, urban mobility has become one of the staple challenges in such metropolitan areas. In this paper, research on urban mobility issues, their challenges and, policy approaches are succinctly reviewed. Furthermore, a review of the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP) and the approaches of distinct countries in this connection along with their lessons from these experiences are outlined. Finally, a new approach to improving Tehran's urban mobility has been proposed, and assorted alternatives have been compared and appraised. In the same vein, the transportation macroscopic model was applied to measure and compare proposed alternatives. Research findings depict that car-based cities confront intricate urban mobility issues and the approach of most cities has been to develop sustainable urban mobility based on improving the quality of their residents' life. Apart from that, for the city of Tehran, applying a combination of alternatives has been more effective in boosting the sustainable urban mobility of this metropolis. Put differently, by examining distinct strategies, a mixed alternative involving the development of soft modes along with congestion pricing for private cars entering CBD has been proposed. It is projected that founded on the proposed policy approach alongside the implementation of a superior alternative, the proportion of the congested network in the central area will be diminished by 1.9 percent.