a- The Transport System in Lebanon
The transport system in Lebanon is both dependent on private cars, as in the majority of countries of the Global North, and has a public transport system that is completely artisanal and unreliable, as in many countries of the Global South.
Private cars are owned by more than 80% of households, with an average of 1.5 cars per household (CDR, 2013), 307 cars/1000 inhabitants nationwide and 350 cars/1000 inhabitants in Greater Beirut alone (El Zein, 2020). Private cars provide about 70% of motorized trips (2015) (TMS Consult, 2015). On the other hand, the public transport network does not provide a real alternative. This network, which is artisanal in nature, is based on about 33,500 cab cars, 3,500 medium-sized buses (24 passengers) and 4,000 minibuses. These figures concern the formal fleet of the network, to which should be added about a quarter of its estimated size as informal. The public transport network relies mainly on individual operation and operates in a very poorly organized and chaotic manner, with no predefined stops and schedules, but with fairly fixed routes for some bus and minibus lines. This network is very poorly distributed geographically: Greater Beirut (3% of the country’s area) monopolizes 75% of its supply and the remaining 25% is distributed over the rest of the territory and mainly to connect the other cities to the capital (CDR, 2013). In 2019, one out of three residents did not take advantage of public transport services at all (ACS, 2019), which therefore provide 28% of motorized trips with 19% for cab cars and 9% for buses and minibuses (2015) (TMS Consult, 2015). Thus, cars in Lebanon, whether private or “service” (shared taxis,cab or taxi-service), largely dominate Lebanese travel with about 89% of the market share of motorized travel.
With all the difficulty and complexity of the methodology to measure the modal share of walking, statistics show that the latter amounts to about 5% to 6% of total trips. This share drops dramatically outside urban areas, but remains very low despite the high density of the country (595 inhabitants/km²) (World Bank, 2017) and especially Beirut 6,200 inhabitants/km2 (Faour & Mhawej, 2014), the urbanization of the territory (90% of residents are in urbanized areas (CODATU, 2012; Osseiran, 2012; UNDP, 2017; Verdeil, 2011)), the favorable weather (more than 300 sunny days in the year with favorable temperature averages), and having a majority of short-distance trips (50% of trips in Lebanon are less than 5 km and 75% are less than 12 km) (MoE et al., 2011, 2012). These same factors are also favorable for the bicycle, which is, unfortunately, totally absent in the trips taken by the Lebanese (El Zein, 2020; SITRAM & EGIS, 2012).
The car is the fastest and most comfortable transportation mean to move from one place to another. Its strongest advantage remains its door-to-door speed. Despite their scarcity, statistics in Lebanon show that drivers prefer to use their cars mainly for the advantages they offer (speed, independence, comfort ...) despite the judgment deeming this mean as the most expensive (El Zein, 2020). This is also proven in the calculations of the costs of acquisition and operation of the car in Lebanon (Stephan & El Sayyed, 2015). This is conversely the case for users of other means, who say they use them because of the lack of other choices or because of their low costs, but not because of the advantages presented (El Zein, 2020).
The speed and accessibility of using cars are enhanced by favorable transport infrastructure. These include roads, highways, parking lots, and any other services dedicated to car use (gas stations, garages, drive-thrus, etc.). These infrastructures are often designed and built in a way that facilitates the mobility of drivers. However, non-drivers do not benefit from them and, even worse, do not have sufficient infrastructure. Public transport infrastructure (stops, reserved lanes, stations, etc.) and bicycle infrastructure (bicycle lanes, self-service bicycles, etc.) are completely absent in Lebanon, and pedestrian infrastructure (sidewalks, crosswalks, traffic lights, etc.) are only present in the cities, and more particularly on the main roads only. However, they are of very poor quality; sidewalks are often occupied (illegal parking, cafes, signs...), and crosswalks and traffic lights are often poorly placed or insufficiently equipped.
This dependence on the private car and the unreliability of its alternatives is leading to a crisis of unsustainability in Lebanon’s transport system. This crisis, in addition to a funding and congestion crisis, results in high accident rates, pollution (noise and environmental), loss of space to roads and highways, and inequality of mobility among the country’s inhabitants (El Zein, 2020).
In a car-dependent system, inequality is always present and is almost common to all countries that suffer from this dependence. It is mainly the gap, at several levels, between car users and non-car users, that is, between those with access to private cars on the one hand and other users of the transport system on the other. It may also concern the differences between users of the same means of transport. However, in the Lebanese case, this inequality becomes more important because the alternatives to the car are absent or unreliable, which is often not the case in other car-dependent countries.
b- Inequality of Mobility in Lebanon: Some Factors
With respect to mobility, differences between different groups of the population become inequality when some of these groups do not benefit, or are less privileged, in several mobility or motorization indicators. Several variables are involved, such as accessibility and speed of mobility, which are conditioned, among other things, by the level of access to private cars. If car ownership and use seem to be simply an individual choice, this is not entirely the case. Access to cars is conditioned by a number of factors, including age, income, gender and geographic location.
Age is a major factor in whether or not people have access to a car. For example, being under 18 and/or not eligible for a license, being too young and therefore not having enough time to save money, not being able to go into debt to buy one, or being old and therefore not having all the physical and mental skills to drive or use a car, are all age-related factors that limit access to a car. This is a first inequality between those who have these constraints, and are therefore non-drivers or have limited access to the car, and those who do not, and therefore have more access to cars and enjoy their benefits.
In addition to age, there is the position in the life cycle. This characteristic is strongly linked to the socio-professional situation of people. A distinction is made mainly between working and non-working people (stay-at-home men and women, unemployed, retired, students). The former have a greater need to travel and their mobility is strongly linked to cars. On the other hand, the mobility of non-working people is rather related to walking and public transport, especially for students. Statistics in Lebanon validate this, where two surveys conducted before the crisis (2018) and during this crisis (2021) show that the private car is used more by working people than by non-working people and that public transport is the main means of transport for students, especially those from low-income households (El Zein, 2020; El Zein & Carrouet, 2022a, 2022b).
A strong correlation is found between income and wealth and car access. Having more wealth means having more opportunities to buy and use a car, and vice versa. Statistics in Lebanon show a relationship between wealth and access to cars, with a majority of multi-motorized households having high incomes compared to only 11% of low-income households that are motorized. In addition to these factors, in the context of the crisis, the currency of wealth is now being added. People who have an income or savings in foreign currency have more ease and possibility to acquire and use a car than those who have their income and savings in national currency, which has already lost more than 95% of its value since the end of 2019.
In addition, the current crisis in Lebanon, and especially the removal of government subsidies on fuel imports, weighs heavily on the purchasing power of the Lebanese and increases prices enormously (up to 600% on some essential consumer products). The cost of transportation has increased by more than 540% since 2019 (Forbes, 2021). This means more pressure on household budgets, with the share devoted to transport before the crisis at an average of 13% of income (ACS, 2013c; Nahas et al., 2016) and 14% of total household expenditure (Yaacoub & Bader, 2012), and with inflation exceeding 290% until September 2021. It is worth noting that the average budget spent on transportation increases with the increase in income in Lebanon. However, this increase in expenditure on mobility means more comfort and speed since middle- and higher-income households have higher rates of motorization or private car use. This is another form of mobility inequality.
Speaking of fuel subsidies, this measure is also unequal in Lebanon. Subsidizing the full cost of fuel means that those who are better off and normally own (and use) more cars and often have larger cars that consume more fuel are the ones who benefit more from these subsidies. A 2011 statistic shows that only 6% of government fuel subsidies benefit the poorest classes compared to 55% for the richest.
The inequality between the two genders, women and men, is also found in mobility, even though it is decreasing over time. In general, men are often designated as the head of the household and use the car more and thus enjoy a higher level of mobility. In Lebanon, with 29% of women in Lebanon in the labor force (ACS, 2019) and with an income gap in favor of men, the risk of having more limited resources to access a private car increases more for women than for men. Gender inequality in the Lebanese transport system does not stop at the financial level and does not only concern the acquisition and use of a car, but also takes other more serious forms, especially when making a trip, as women also suffer more in terms of comfort. Women are more at risk of harassment during the trips they take, especially if they use public transport, especially public transport (bus/minibus), or while walking, especially during off-peak hours of the day and night. Statistics in Lebanon show that women prefer to use private or service cars and use public transport (buses and minibuses) less, both before and during the crisis (El Zein, 2020; El Zein & Carrouet, 2022a, 2022b).
Geographic location is another factor of inequality. Living in a dense urban area with more services and jobs reduces the need for private cars. On the other hand, living outside urban areas with less density, services and employment opportunities increases the need for private cars. Not only is this related to location, but also to the distance between the place of residence (or work) and the center. As this distance increases, so does the need for a private car. In Lebanon, this is mainly the case for the central agglomeration of Greater Beirut, which is the center of the country with 50% of the population, two thirds of the jobs and 40% of the economic activity (ACS, 2007a, 2014a; Faour et al., 2007; SDATL, 2005), as opposed to the rest of the country, which can be considered as the periphery of this center. At the regional level, each city, large or medium (Tripoli, Sidon, Tyre, Baalbek, Zahle, Nabatieh ...), plays the role of the center for its surroundings considered as its own periphery, rather rural. The concentration of jobs and services in these centers requires travel from, or to, the peripheries. Given the distance and time of these trips and the absence of reliable alternatives, the use of the private car seems inevitable. This means that people living in the centers save more time and money in accessing their jobs and services (even if they use a private car to make these trips), while people living in the peripheral areas bear an additional cost in terms of time, speed, comfort, etc., because of the requirement to use a car or to have only public transport, whose service is of modest quality, as an alternative. This inequality in terms of geographic location may also be manifested in terms of the serviceability of transport infrastructure, including the size and quality of the road network and public transport services. As already explained in the introduction, these services are predominantly present in Greater Beirut and the other cities and are absent and of lower quality in the rest of the territory.
This inequality is greater for people with low incomes, women, youth, the elderly, people with reduced mobility, etc., who will suffer more to bear the costs of access to private cars or the conditions of public transport. It can sometimes take extreme forms in which people who do not have access to a private car, or who have difficulties in using other modes of transport, will be “forced” to change their place of residence and/or their place of work or study, or even refuse an offer of employment or training because of a lack of accessibility.
c- Conclusion
The transport system in Lebanon is dependent on private cars and suffers from the unreliability of its alternatives. This generates, among other things, a lack of inequality between the different categories of users of the system. More specifically, this inequality stems from the gap in mobility and ease and speed of accessibility as well as the transport budget. Several criteria are at the origin of this inequality: age, income, social class, gender, and geographic location being the main factors. This inequality has increased in the context of the crisis and is likely to increase further as the crisis evolves, especially if appropriate measures are not taken to make the transport system more reliable but also more equitable. Having such a system is no longer an option, but is increasingly becoming an inevitable requirement in Lebanon.
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