In the latest meeting of the Ministry of Roads and Urbanization’s logistics taskforce, the Minister, Abbas Akhundi, called for change in the country’s transportation structure and said: “Basically, in the governmental approach, the business outlook of the transportation structure is lacking. For example, billions of Rials have been invested in the railway. However, this investment has not been used to improve economic efficiency.”
Mr Akhundi said that the government’s approach should be to develop the rail network across the country and to connect the rail network to neighboring countries. He introduced two main points of focus in this sector which require the construction of logistics parks; first, mines with cargo capacity over 100 million tons and second, transit and the transportation of cargo from seaports to different destinations within the country.
The Minister of Roads od Iran believes that due to the lack of such vision, the transportation network has developed heterogeneously. “While 13 million passengers are transported via the Tehran-Mashhad railway, other routes do not see much use. In terms of air transport as well, more than 60 airports have been constructed all over the country. However, 80% of flights are from 9 airports and the remaining 20% are from the other 51”, said Mr. Akhundi.
Mr Akhundi concluded: “All provinces want an airport; an airport with “new” equipment and facilities has been constructed in the city of Kalaeh county, in Golestan Province, which has yet to have a single flight. On the other hand, local transportation, between border towns and across the border has been neglected. If we take a step further we can see that the priority is to ease the transportation of people and cargo with neighboring countries via border terminals.”
