Transport in Ethiopia

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Contents 1 Railways: 1.1 Railway links to adjacent countries 1.2 Maps 1.3 Cities served by rail 1.4 2006 2 Highways 3 Ports and harbours 4 Merchant marine 5 Airports 5.1 Airports - with paved runways 5.2 Airports - with unpaved runways 6 See also 7 Notes 8 Further reading

[edit] Railways:

total:

• 681 km (Ethiopian segment of the Addis Ababa - Djibouti Railway), all 1000mm narrow gauge
• note: At present the railway is under joint control of Djibouti and Ethiopia, but negotiations are underway to privatize this transport utility.

[edit] Railway links to adjacent countries

• Djibouti - yes - 1000mm
• Somalia - no railways
• Kenya - no - same gauge 1000mm
• Sudan - no - break of gauge 1000mm/1067mm
• Eritrea - no break-of-gauge 1000mm/950mm

[edit] Maps

• UN map

[edit] Cities served by rail

• Djibouti - port
• Dire Dawa
• Nazret
• Addis Ababa - national capital

[edit] 2006

• 2 November 2006 - Ineco Spt of Spain has been named the preferred choice for supervision and administration of rehabilitation work on the 781km Ethio-Djibouti Railway for €2.2 million. Consta - an Italian company - will undertake the actual reconstruction at a cost of €40 million (about R360m). Comazar of South Africa has been awarded the 25-year concession. Rails are to be upgraded from 20kg/m to 40kg/m, to carry substantially increased loads. A fleet of new locomotives and freight wagons will be brought in by the concessionaire. ^[1]

[edit] Highways

As the first part of a 10-year Road Sector Development Program, between 1997 and 2002 the Ethiopian government began a sustained effort to improve its infrastructure of roads. As a result, as of 2002 Ethiopia has a total (Federal and Regional) 33,297 km of roads, both paved and gravel. The share of Federally managed roads in good quality improved from 14% in 1995 to 31% in 2002 as a result of this program, and the road density increased from 21 km per 1000 sq. km (in 1995) to 30 km; however, this is still less than the average of 50 km per 1000 sq. km for Africa.^[2]

The Ethiopian government has begun second part of the Road Sector Development Program, which is scheduled for completion in 2007. This will involve the upgrading or construction of over 7,500 km of roads, with the goal of improving the average road density for Ethiopia to 35 km per 1000 sq. km, and reduce the proportion of the country area that is more than 5 km from an all-weather road from 75% to 70%.^[3]

• total (Regional and Federal): 33,297 km
• asphalt: 3,789 km
• gravel: 27,782 km
• maintained by Regional government: 16,680 km

[edit] Ports and harbours

None. Ethiopia is landlocked and was by agreement with Eritrea using the ports of Assab and Massawa; since the border dispute with Eritrea flared, Ethiopia has used the port of Djibouti for nearly all of its imports.

[edit] Merchant marine

total: 12 ships (1,000 GRT or over) totaling 84,915 GRT/112,634 DWT (1999 est.); 9 ships (1,000 GRT or over) 81,933 GRT/101,287 DWT (2003 est.)
ships by type: cargo 7; container 1; petroleum tanker 1; roll-on/roll-off 3 (1999 est.), 1 (2003 est.)

[edit] Airports

82 (2203 est.)

[edit] Airports - with paved runways

total: 14
over 3,047 m: 3
2,438 to 3,047 m: 5
1,524 to 2,437 m: 5
914 to 1,523 m: 1 (2003 est.)

[edit] Airports - with unpaved runways

total: 68
over 3,047 m: 3
2,438 to 3,047 m: 2
1,524 to 2,437 m: 13
914 to 1,523 m: 27
under 914 m: 23 (2003 est.)

[edit] See also

• Ethiopia

[edit] Notes

[edit] Further reading

• "Chapter 8: Transport and Communications" in Richard Pankhurst, Economic History of Ethiopia (1800 - 1935) (Addis Ababa: Haile Selassie I University Press, 1968).

This article contains material from the CIA World Factbook which, as a US government publication, is in the public domain.