Planning mobility across regimes: the Hijaz Railway and the electric tramway in Damascus from the late Ottoman to the Mandate era, 1900–1940

This study examines how the Hijaz Railway and the electric tramway functioned as connected infrastructures through which mobility was planned and urban space was reorganised in Damascus from the late Ottoman to the Mandate era. Rather than considering rail and tram as separate transport histories, it analyses them as linked systems connecting stations, squares, boulevards, streets and emerging urban districts. It argues that, in the late Ottoman period, the railway, Marjah Square, the tramway and projects such as Shariʿ al-Nasr formed part of an imperial modernist spatial regime. Under the French Mandate, these logics were reworked through new corridors, street widenings and urban plans associated with colonial governance. Drawing on archival documents, concession records, periodicals, company materials and visual sources, the study shows that mobility was a key instrument in producing urban order across regimes.