Planning of National Transport Infrastructure
In the Islamic Countries
10
particular political goals. This scenario speaks to ad-hoc planning. At the opposite extreme is
central and top down planning, where a state agency is mandated to prepare national plans that
are implemented through force of law. A contemporary compromise is through the application
of the theory of subsidiarity (Steiner and Božičević, 2008). Through devolving planning
decisions to the lowest level where the greatest interests lay, is considered to best ensure that
the most appropriate and hence most sustainable solutions will prevail. However, the down side
is that the coordination and integration issues increase as decisionmaking is devolved (Hickman
and Banister, 2007). The ideal, as ever, is to obtain balance.
Beyond domestic boundaries, external agendas are increasingly important in influencing the
development of transport, such agenda may be driven by the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) of which at least 8 out of 17 goals can directly influence the nature as well as the
functionality of the transport system. Transport planners have to be very broad minded when it
comes to formulating programmes that achieve the national long-term vision with many of the
objectives not being transport related at all.
The literature review is structured following the seven framework areas as described in section
Each framework area in the following sections discusses the development of the particular
area in the OIC countries and outside the OIC geography. For the OIC countries, the analyses will
be enriched with the questionnaire results that have been filled out by 22 OIC member states
and 8 academia/private institutions in OIC countries (see Appendix 2).
2.2. Political and Legislation Factors
‘Policy first’ is the mantra that should guide everything and that of managing the transport
sector is no exception. Yet whilst this is appreciated by transport professionals, politicians
remain to be convinced of this, so few transport plans are written within a policy framework.
Pragmatism prevails, living and working in a policy vacuum is the norm rather than the
exception. This holds for other sectors as well. Examples include enterprise building in UK
(Phelps and Tewdwr-Jones, 1998), for foreign relations in the Arctic (Fenge and Penikett, 2009),
internet marketing of tobacco (Elkin et al., 2010), for securing student accommodation (Cate,
2006), for immigration (Vidali, 1999) but also in integrating land use with transport planning
(Waddell, 2011, Kane and Del Mistro, 2003, Garrison and Levinson, 2014). Without policy, the
context within which decisions are rationalised becomes problematic, intervention logic is
compromised, and investment risks considerably heightened which has a very big impact on
funding.
2.2.1. Political and Legislation Factors in OIC Countries
Evidence exists that OIC Member States desire to move up a level to a more policy driven and
spatial approach to transport planning such as Government of Lebanon (2006), Malaysia (SPAD,
2013), Indonesia (Leung, 2016). Nigeria is a perfect case of recognizing the role of transport to
provide mobility, rather than building roads. Its Draft Transport Policy aims to stimulate
national development and enhances the quality of life for all and recognizes the role of transport
as being broadly based, as indicated in the text box.