Evaluation of the Quality of Railways Performance in Iraq (Baghdad -Basra Line as a Case Study)

Abstract

The Iraqi railways are considered one of the first railways established in the Middle East. Iraq’s geographical location made it a connecting point between the region countries, Asia, and Europe, as the Iraqi railway network extended to Iran, Kuwait, the Arabian Gulf, and Saudi Arabia. The war conditions that the country went through affected the services provided by the railways. The research aims to assess the performance of the Baghdad-Basra railway by measuring the level of service for this line as a model for evaluating the quality of the railways’ performance in Iraq. The research goal was achieved in two stages. In the first stage, theoretical information about the research subject was collected. In the second stage, 32 samples were collected from train trips for the Baghdad-Basra railway. Each sample included details of train trips on different dates (2009-2012). The reasons for the deviations at the time of the train arrival were determined by analyzing the samples, calculating the actual time and the planned time for the train trip, and proposing appropriate solutions to solve the problem of deviations and improve the quality of the performance of the railway line.