In April 2019, the State Committee on Urban Planning and Architecture of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SCUPA) commissioned AS+P to develop a General Plan for Baku City. The General Plan presents perspectives of major urban and transport development for the year 2027 and 2040.
Special attention was given to the development of compatible and sustainable transport concepts aiming at the elimination of bottlenecks while substantially alleviating current and future traffic problems. AS+P has proposed various measures to strengthen and essentially expand public transport to meet the mobility demand of future urban development areas and to shift the already increasing mobility demand from private vehicle use to sustainable modes. Among others, the expansion of the rail network incl. the upgrade of railway stations has been proposed to allow for suburban train operation at regular intervals. In addition, an ambitious expansion of the metro network is intended to link new development areas as well as peripheral areas of Baku City to central locations. Moreover, an LRT system has been proposed to complement and optimise the interconnection of all Baku City inner-urban areas. Dovetailing of the modules of the entire public transport system will ensure sustainable and economically feasible development.
Road network expansions have been proposed in close coordination with SCUPA. The main target was to redirect the immense traffic volumes from inner-city arterials to new ring roads around the city and new radial arterials. Baku wants to comply with the requirements of smart and micro mobility. For this purpose, packages of measures have been proposed to expand and modify public realm assisted by an extensive implementation of safe pedestrian crossings and speed reductions for motorised vehicles to encourage walking and cycling in the future.