Urban accessibility in cities: Why is Jordan falling behind?

More than 85% of Jordan’s urban population lives in its four largest cities - Amman, Zarqa, Irbid, and Russeifa – and these major urban areas are projected to grow even larger over the next decade. The country is also a major destination for refugees, with migrants currently accounting for almost half of its total population. In that context, policymakers face a clear challenge: managing a growing population in already busy cities while designing urban spaces that work for all their residents.

Measuring urban accessibility in Jordanian cities

Much of the physical interaction between people in cities happens at the places where they work, shop, eat, worship, and receive care. In our study, we look at urban accessibility in terms of the time it takes people to reach these destinations, which depends both on how far they have to travel and how fast they can move. 

To measure this, we combine data on simulated car trips from Google Maps with information on the location and type of destinations from Google Places. These data let us compare Jordanian cities with peer cities in the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey (MENAT) region and understand how much of the accessibility in Jordan is driven by travel speed, distances, or both.

Why travel distances matter more than traffic speeds

It is easy to assume that traffic congestion is the primary barrier to mobility in Jordan. While Amman, like other capital cities in the MENAT region, does indeed suffer from high congestion, the main obstacle in Jordan lies elsewhere. Despite having major roads that are 20% shorter than the regional average, cities in Jordan are relatively fast.

This is highlighted in the figure below, which plots average driving speeds throughout the day based on trips simulated in Google Maps in 2019. It compares the four largest cities in Jordan with other major regional hubs such as Cairo, the slowest city in the MENAT region, and Ankara, one of the fastest. For reference, the graph also includes the fastest city in the world (Flint, United States) and the slowest (Dhaka, Bangladesh). 

Jordanian speeds fall right in the middle of the global and regional distribution. The graph also illustrates the role of congestion in these cities - Amman experiences the sharpest slowdown, dropping from an average speed of nearly 40 kilometres per hour late at night when there is no traffic to under 30 kilometres per hour during the day. In contrast, speeds in cities like Zarqa and Irbid remain much steadier throughout the day. We also collected data for 2025, and the patterns remained almost identical, suggesting that mobility in Jordanian cities has been stable over time.

Figure 1: Travel speed throughout the day in representative cities

Spatial distribution drives Jordan’s accessibility gap

Despite moving within cities at speeds similar to the regional and global average, we estimate that residents of cities in Jordan must travel 24% longer distances than their peers in other MENAT cities to reach everyday destinations, which more than offsets the relatively fast travel speeds. As a result, overall accessibility in Jordan lags behind peers across the region.

We show that the long travel distances in Jordan are not driven by a low number of amenities available to city residents. In Panel A below, we plot the number of venues on Google Places predicted by city characteristics against the actual number of venues in cities across the MENAT region. The graph shows that the number of destinations in the four major cities in Jordan align closely with the predicted values. 

In Panel B, we perform a similar exercise but using a measure of distance to the closest venue instead of the number of venues. The graph shows that the typical distance residents must travel to reach their destinations is substantially longer than predicted. The conclusion is simple - there are enough places to go in Jordan, but they are far away from where people live.

Figure 2: Number of venues and distances compared to predicted data

Accessibility varies across destinations and modes of transport 

Accessibility in Jordan varies across destinations and modes of transportation. 

The time taken to reach local amenities like grocery stores and places of worship is among the shortest in the region. In contrast, access to specialised services such as hospitals is much lower in Jordan than in other cities in the MENAT region. 

While driving remains the best way to get around in most neighbourhoods in the country, short trips to local spots like grocery stores located within dense city centres usually take less time on foot than by car.

Policy recommendations: How can Jordan make its cities more accessible?

• Shift focus beyond road expansion: Despite having less major road infrastructure than comparable cities in the region, Jordanian cities do not have particularly slow travel speeds. This suggests that roads in Jordan seem to work efficiently, and urban policy in the country should not prioritise building more roads.
   
• Bring destinations closer to people: Jordan’s accessibility gap is driven mainly by long distances to destinations. The biggest gains are therefore likely to come from bringing essential services closer to residential areas and improving the spatial distribution of key amenities across neighbourhoods.
   
• Target key destinations: Jordan performs relatively well when it comes to accessing nearby, common destinations such as groceries and places of worship, but much worse for more specialised services such as hospitals. Policy should therefore focus on improving the spatial distribution of key public services.
   
• Address congestion in Amman: Long distances are the main source of poor accessibility in Jordan overall, but Amman also stands out for especially high congestion. This points to the need for targeted policies in the capital to reduce traffic delays and improve urban mobility.