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Saudi Arabia
TRANSPORTATION AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS
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 reached 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.
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.
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 almost 60 percent 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
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