Transportation

Saudi Arabia's extensive transportation system was almost completely built in the four decades following 1950. In that year, the country had no railroads, about 200 kilometers of paved roads, and no adequate air facilities. Most localities could be reacÍÍÍÍhed only by gravel roads or tracks interspersed with a few airstrips for small airplanes. By 1991 the country boasted an excellent system of expressways, paved roads, and airports that linked all the populated areas of the kingdom (see fig. 7).

Figure 7. Transportation System, 1992

Highways constituted the backbone of the Saudi transportation system. In 1991 there were about 100,000 kilometers of roads, 35,000 kilometers of which were paved. The country's chief route was the Trans-Arabian Highway, a multilane expressway that crossed the peninsula from Ad Dammam to Jiddah, passing through Riyadh and Mecca. Other expressways connected Jiddah with Medina, extended north from Ad Dammam toward the Kuwaiti border, and ringed the capital and Jiddah. Paved roads linked all other major urban areas. Paved roads crossed into all of Saudi Arabia's neighbors except Oman and a causeway connected with Bahrain. The Saudi Public Transportation Company, partly owned by the government, operated a fleet of more than 1,000 buses that provided regular service both between the country's cities and within them.

Railroads were only a minor element in the country's transportation system, and rail service was only reestablished in the early 1950s after a four-decade hiatus. The Ottoman Turks built the first railroad on the peninsula, the Hejaz Railway linking Damascus with Medina. Parts of this railroad were destroyed in World War I, and the line was abandoned. In 1951 a 571-kilometer, 1.435-meter standard-gauge rail line was built linking Ad Dammam to Riyadh. A second, shorter line between Riyadh and Al Hufuf was built in the early 1980s.

The Hijaz/Wadi Hanifah junction is an example of the modern Saudi highway system.

Courtesy Saudi Arabian Information Office

Causeway to Bahrain under construction it was completed in 1986.

Courtesy Aramco World

Arabsat tracking station, Jabal al Ali, in northern Saudi Arabia near Jordan

Courtesy Aramco World

Riyadh television tower

Courtesy Saudi Arabian Information Office

Because of the country's position as exporter of petroleum, ports played a major role in the transportation system. Jiddah was the kingdom's principal port, handling almos 912t 60 perercent of the goods moved by sea in 1988. Ad Dammam, serving the country's oil fields in the east, was the second-largest port for imports whereas Ras Tanura handled a major part of Saudi Arabia's petroleum exports. Al Jubayl on the Persian Gulf and Yanbu north of Jiddah, both of which were connected to large industrial complexes, were somewhat smaller. Jizan near the Yemeni border in the south was a lesser port serving the Asir agricultural region. Numerous harbors on both the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea served the fishing and coastal transportation sectors.

Large distances between urban areas and difficult terrain have made air travel an essential complement to Saudi Arabia's road network. In 1991 there were sixty-nine airports with paved runways. The country's three largest airports, King Abd al Aziz International in Jiddah, King Khalid International in Riyadh, and Dhahran International (King Fahd International in Ad Dammam was under construction, scheduled for completion in 1994), had large modern terminals, runways capable of handling large airplanes, and regularly scheduled international flights. The country counted more than 19 million air passengers in 1985, many of them pilgrims en route to Mecca. Saudi, the national airline, offered domestic service to more than twenty cities and an international network to almost four dozen destinations in Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America.

Data as of December 1992