This paper focused on studying the service characteristics of bus routes in the city of Kut, such as determining the stopping points for each of the public transport lines in the study area, the total boarding and disembarkation of passengers at each station, determining the location of the bus route, time, distance traveled and the number of passengers in the bus, estimating the demand of passengers on the bus route. This study aims to assess the efficiency of the performance of the public transport network and help decision makers to identify the problem of traffic congestion in the streets of the city for take the necessary measures to make improvements to the public transport network and thus encourage citizens to use them, which contributes to alleviating the traffic of congestion in the streets of the city , as the number of bus service lines in the city of Kut was 12 routes throughout the city. Two types of field surveys were conducted on these routes for the purpose of data collection, namely the ride check survey, and the point check survey. The results of the analysis in this study, which depended on collecting data and determining where and how passengers used the service, showed that the paths (Al-Sawadah, Al-Khajia, Al-Anwar, Al-Hawra) have the greatest demand for travel with a value of (2880, 2810, 2560, 2392) passenger/hour respectively. Also the boarding and alighting of passengers is not high in most of the roads and that some roads are of low load .

Traffic congestion is one of the major problems that most cities face in Iraq. Traffic congestion leads to increased delays, fatigue, vehicle operating costs, pollution. Congestion increases with every additional vehicle on the road. And the city of Kut is one of the Iraqi cities, which after 2003 witnessed a significant increase in the number of vehicles at the expense of public transport as a result of the improvement in the economic situation and the raising of the standard of living for individuals, which was accompanied by the possibility of buying a private car, which negatively affected the traffic in the city, especially at peak times .This study aims to propose a new means of public transport in the city of Kut, bus rapid transit, and the main purpose is to encourage citizens to leave the private car to alleviate traffic congestion by refining the level of service and performance for the public transport system in the city and the citizen’s comfort as a final outcome by delivering citizens to their place of residence or their place of work as soon as possible and at the lowest cost. In this study, geographic information system was adopted in processing and analyzing data and applying a program AHP to calculate criteria weights. The geospatial analysis approach was used to choose the route and within the basic design of the city of Kut by searching for sites that meet the choice criteria employing the advantages of GIS in the ability to overlay and merge maps and the network analysis.

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) It is one of the public vehicle systems in modern cities that provides fast, convenient, and cost-saving transport services. It operates on separate lines. The activation of the BRT system depends on the locations of the stations within its route. If the stations were located in suitable locations, it would attract a large number of passengers, this contributes to an increase in the use of public transport and thus reduces traffic congestion, road accidents and environmental pollution in the city. In this research, station locations for the proposed BRT route in Al Kut city will be studied and analyzed. 10 candidate sites were selected for BRT stations. Criteria that were used to analyze the sites of these stations are the locations of government institutions, health and educational services, stopping points for current means of transportation, and the population density of city areas. Geographical Information Systems (GIS) technology was used to represent these criteria spatially on the map to be processed and prepared for analysis using the Services Coverage Tool (Service Area) and allocation Tool (Allocation – Location) available in the network analysis toolbar and overlay tool (intersect) in the Toolbox menu. The results of the analysis showed that the sites of (10) BRT stations are within good and reasonable services coverage areas in relation to the services distribution sites in the city and the BRT route site, as the stations cover (76) government site, (69) educational institutions, (10) health sites, and (11) stops for the current transportation lines. The results of the statistical analysis also showed that the coverage of BRT stations is 88% of the total population density in the city.