Many rapidly growing cities face increasing congestion, emissions, and pressure on infrastructure. Without strong public transport systems, urban expansion often leads to inefficient sprawl and declining living conditions.

TOD offers an alternative pathway—one that links well-planned density with transit investments. By encouraging compact growth around transit corridors, TOD can:

• Reduce congestion and emissions
• Improve access to jobs and services
• Support economic development
• Enhance urban livability

For cities in low- and middle-income countries, TOD represents a critical opportunity to shape growth in a more sustainable and inclusive way.

While TOD is widely recognized, implementation remains challenging. Cities often face barriers such as fragmented governance, sector silos, limited financing, and misaligned planning frameworks.

In many cases, TOD has been applied narrowly—focusing only on densification—without fully integrating public space, accessibility, or land use diversity. Effective TOD requires a more context-sensitive and system-wide approach, taking into account local conditions such as transit capacity, urban form, and infrastructure constraints.

Overcoming these challenges means strengthening coordination, aligning policies, and embedding TOD into both planning and investment cycles.

Successful TOD depends on strong institutional foundations and people-centered design.

• Good governance ensures coordination across agencies, long-term vision, and accountability in implementation.
• Inclusiveness ensures that TOD benefits all residents, with equitable access to housing, services, and mobility options.
• Safety is enhanced through walkable environments, reduced car dependency, and better-designed streets that protect vulnerable users.

Together, these elements ensure that TOD is not only efficient, but also equitable and sustainable.

To support cities in moving from concept to implementation, the GPSC and the World Bank have developed a comprehensive Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Toolkit.

The toolkit provides practical, actionable guidance across the full TOD cycle, including:

• Planning and design strategies
• Policy and regulatory frameworks
• Financing mechanisms, including land value capture
• Case studies and global best practices
• Tools to support governance, inclusiveness, and safety

Designed for practitioners, the TOD Toolkit helps cities translate global knowledge into context-specific, investment-ready solutions, bridging the gap between planning and implementation—an approach fully aligned with the GPSC’s mission to connect knowledge with on-the-ground impact