The impact of religious tourism on the quality of the urban transport system in the historical city

Introduction. Historical cities, functioning as religious sites, often encounter transport problems affecting the operation of road networks. The problem of traffic capacity exhaustion is particularly relevant due to large numbers of tourists and pilgrims coming to historical cities on certain days and staying there during the periods of religious holidays. The problem affects the safety, comfort, and quality of the urban environment for urban residents and guests. Materials and methods. The authors have formulated an approach to assessing the operation of urban road networks and use it as a research method whereby they calculate the transport demand and supply factor for the transport infrastructure ensuring different types of population mobility. Load factor k and levels of service (LOS) are employed to assess the operation of urban networks. The subject of research is the operation of the transit system in the historical city of Karbala, Iraq, which is a religious centre for Muslims from all over the world. Results. The authors conducted a field study on the transport situation in the Karbala – Babil area, analyzed the operation of transport and pedestrian infrastructures in three selected zones featuring characteristic urban planning conditions, depending on the distance between each zone and the historical religious centre. Transport demand and supply data are applied to calculate load factors; the level of public service is determined for ordinary days as well as days and periods of religious holidays. Conclusions. Given the assessment results, obtained for the urban road network using the developed approach, the main problems of the present-day transport system in the city of Karbala and their solutions are formulated, which is the first step towards the transport system reconstruction for the purpose of sustainable urban development.