The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), known as a political and economic cooperation alliances between Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirate, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar, has brought up efforts to achieve the goals of their regional agenda. As the members holds great control in producing gas and oil energy resources with a high population increase in the Middle East region, the importance of public transportation facilities starting to arise. As an effort to increase the accessibility of goods and services among member countries, the GCC form the Gulf Railway Project to develop rail transportation network which scheduled to end in 2018. The Gulf Railway Project was initially formed by the GCC committee at the 30th GCC Summit back in 2009, but the linking of railroads construction was put executed as a special agenda in 2017 after completing projects in three other transportation media namely road, aviation and maritime.

On December 9, 2019, the GCC committee meeting was held in Kuwait to follow up on the policy of a pan-Arabic rail transportation network with a length of more than 2,000 km. It directly connects major cities in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, and Oman. To carry out the project, the estimated cost is set at up to 240 billion US dollars with financial assistance from not only GCC member countries, but also the private sector as well as regional and international organizations such as the International Railroad Union (UIC) and the European Union (EU). 

The development of an integrated rail network expected to provide a sustainable transportation system enabling the member of the GCC to create new commercial opportunities and attract investors and trade partners to be involved in the region’s economy. Even though it is still in the development stage, the project has proven to be influential in the UAE today. The new metro network in Dubai was expanded to 1,200 km with the establishment of four new stations connecting major cities in the emirate for passenger and freight mobility. The rail project network has also been proven to reduce carbon emission pollution resulting from private vehicles thereby supporting a sustainable transportation system.

The development of rail transportation networks in GCC agenda faces several problems. First, there are resistances from the local community due to negative perceptions resulting from the construction of a rail transportation network in the Middle East region, especially the GCC countries. This refusal is based on the idea of a significant loss of income happened among traditional service worker so it considered to only benefit the government. In addition, land clearing for rail lines is also considered to be detrimental to the activities of local residents. Second, there is a political risk in the form of a lack of transparency in the funds used in building the railroad network. The lack of a clear regulatory framework from the government that can be applied to the governance of both rail workers and passengers is the reason for the inflow of grants from the private sector as well as regional and international organizations. Some of the problems above resulting in the decision to extend the project contract. Even though construction was scheduled to end in 2019, this project proved to be delayed due to funding constraints and was only estimated to be completed by the end of 2021. However, this estimate was made before the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic became a new obstacle for GCC to implement this policy.