Roads According to the latest official statistics available (1993), there
were 72,656 kilometres of various types of roads across the country.
The average length of roads per 100 square kilometres has increasedf
rom 4 to 6.5 kilometres, but it is still low compared to many
countries. The Roads and Transportation Ministry has concentrated
much of its efforts in the post-revolution years on expanding rural
roads networks, from around 20,000 kilometres to the present
approximately 38,000 kilometres. The length of the motorways were
477 kilometres in the year ended 20 March 1993.

Works have been started for construction of transportation terminals
in all the provinces. The gigantic Amir Kabir cargo loading terminal
of Isfahan has 13,000 square metres of constructed area and 150,000
square metres of landscape. Furthermore, the longest tunnel, 2,005
metres long was inaugurated on Kerman-Shahdad road in early 1989.

Passenger And Cargo Transport

The last road transport census carried out by the Statistics Centre
of Iran in 1994 showed:

• total light and heavy-duty inter-city cargo vehicles licenced in the year ended 20 March 1994: 86,109
  
• total heavy-duty cargo vehicles licenced in the year ended 20
  March 1994: 28,212
• oil products, limestone, cement and wheat constituted the biggest quantities of goods carried;
• light and heavy-duty vehicles made more than 2 million trips in
  the month under study. Only 55 per cent of the trips involved
  transporting cargo.

Railways n Iran has 5,821 kms of railroads including the 146 kms
electric railtracks connecting Tabriz to Jolfa (both in East
Azarbaijan province).

• Some 1,000 kms of new railroads were added to country's network by
  the end of the first development plan (March 1994).
• The state owned Railway Company owns 209 locomotives, 13,000 cargo
  cars and 800 passenger wagons, and employs 35,500 personnel in the
  13 districts of the country's railroad network.
• The number of passengers travelling by railway annually has been
  risen to 9.1 million people from 6.3 million at the beginning of the
  1st Plan, an annual growth of 7.5 percent. The amount of cargo
  transported by railway increased from 13 million tonnes to 20
  million tonnes by the end of the five year plan.
• The railway is to absorb 30 percent, or rials 700 billion of the
  total funds earmarked for the country's transport sector.

Air Transport Civil Aviation Organisation

The Civil Aviation Organisation (CAO) is in charge of the airports,
their maintenance and expansion, and constructing new ones. It is
also responsible for flight control and issuing permits for civilian
flights. In terms of Iran's civil aviation, there is a fleet of 81
registered and 16 chartered planes.

Iran Air And Asseman

Iran Air and Asseman companies fly the internal routes. The two
companies carried 5,053,000 passengers and 25,141 tonnes of cargo in
internal and international flights in the year ended 20 March 1994
(internal: 4,307,000 passengers).

New flight routes were established in the last three years. These
included the longest internal route between Rasht and Bandar Abbas,
with approximate flight time of two hours and ten minutes, and two
flights a week between Mashad in the northeast and Yazd in the
south. Iran air currently offers regular weekly flights to Baku
(Azerbaijan), Ashkhabad (Turkmenistan), and one charter flight to
Yervan (Armenia). It has plans for establishing regular flights to
Dushanbe, the Capital of Tajkiistan as well.

Asseman Company has smaller F-28 (85 seats) and F-27 (44 seats) and
makes 158 weekly scheduled flights to 21 airports. It also has 34
chartered flights a week for government organisations. The Asseman
airlines of Iran has also purchased five ETR passenger planes from
France.

Airports

There are 26 domestic airports in Iran operating round-the-clock,
six international airports, and six airfields for the National
Iranian Oil Company. Another eight airports are being built in
various part of Iran by private investors. The international
airports are the Tehran Mehrabad Airport, Isfahan, Shiraz, Mashad,
Tabriz, Bandar Abbas. Others are in Bushehr, Bandar Lengeh, Kish
island, Kerman, Rasht, Chahbahar, Ahvaz, Urmiya, Baakhtaran,
Birjand, Zabol, Iranshahr, Laar, Khorramabad, Hamedan, Sanandaj,
Raamsar and Noshahr.

INTERNATIONAL TRANSPORT

Roads Iran is connected to Europe by road through the Turkish
transit route. Twenty per cent of its imports pass through Turkey.
Seventy-five international road transportation companies are
operating in Iran, 15 of them owned by or affiliated to the
government. 40 private ones are recognised by the Roads and
Transport Ministry as qualified for carrying goods to other
countries.

Rail Iran is linked by rail to three countries: Turkey, Pakistan and
the Republic of Azerbaijan. The most active route at present is the one
to Azerbaijan Republic through Julfa.

On the expansion of Iran's railway links with its neighbours, it is
aimed the laying of a railtrack between Mashhad and the town of
Sarakhs which straddles the Iran-Turkmenistan border.

Another one connecting Kerman to Zahedan near the Pakistani border
is under study.

Establishment of railway links between Iran and Turkey, Pakistan and
its northern neighbors is among other programmes the railway company
plans to implement in the future.

Flights In the year ended 20 March 1994, a total of 681,000
passengers travelled abroad by air. Iran Air's share of passengers was 10 times
all foreign airlines combined. Cargo imported and exported by air
amounted to tonnes and 18,573 tonnes respectively.

Foreign Airlines

Several foreign airlines fly to and from Iran. These included
Aeroflot, Air France, Air India, Alitalia, Austrian Airline,
Emirates, Gulf Air, KLM, Lufthansa, Pakistan International Airline
(PIA), Swiss Air, Syrian Airline, Turkish Airways.

Sea Transport Iran has 630 kilometres of coastal line in the north
and 1,880 kilometres in the south. Bandar Anzali and Noshahr are the only two
active ports in the north. But five ports have the facilities to
admit ocean liners in the south. Before the war, Khorramshahr and
Abadan two of the principal Iranian ports. But they were heavily
damaged early in the war. Reconstruction plans started in 1988.
Khorramshahr had been the most active Iranian port before the
revolution, admitting 36 per cent of ships arriving in Iranian
ports. After the outbreak of the war with Iraq, Bandar Abbas
gradually replaced Khorramshahr since 1983.

Port Capacity

The national port capacity went up to 22,651,000 tonnes. A total of
1,922 ships arrived in Iranian ports in the year ended 20 March
1994. Of the total for the year reported, 651 berthed at Bahonar and
Rajaie ports of Bandar Abbas, 162 at Bushehr, 42 at Shahid Beheshti
of Chahbahar, 584 at Bandar Imam Khomeini, 371 at Bandar Anzali and
124 at Noshahr.

Net capacity of ships berthing at Iranian ports totalled 11,226,000
tonnes, 10,732,000 tonnes in southern and 494,000 tonnes in northern
ports.