Transport is a key driver of socioeconomic development, as it allows people to access jobs, markets, social interaction, education, and other services. Thus, enabling people to rise out of poverty and overcome social exclusion. Transport facilitates economic development by adding value to goods brought to markets and linking rural areas to cities and global supply chains.

Karachi—the largest city in Pakistan and the twelfth-largest city in the world and Pakistan's premier industrial and financial centre—has a major transport crisis. At independence in 1947 it had a fairly efficient...