The cost of environmental degradation in Lebanon was estimated to be close to $485 million per year, or 2.9 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The large negative impacts of this degradation are the pollution occurring in urban area and is mainly caused by air pollution and with an average estimate of $145 million per year and around 0.87 percent of the GDP. This high air pollution is mostly linked to the transportation sector in Lebanon. Lebanon suffers from a daily increase in road network usage, which has resulted in gridlocks, especially in the greater Beirut area. By all means, the continued lack of policies and a political will to encourage the adoption of an efficient and reliable public transportation and to discourage the ownership of private vehicles have resulted in traffic growth that is faster than the road capacity. By all means, congestion is not a passing problem; it will continue to grow in the absence of measures to reduce traffic by adopting other modes of transportation, such as buses, trains, Trams, bicycles and others etc. This study describes the various factors that affect the costs associated with congestion, and provides well-defined methods for evaluating the corresponding costs.

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