Public transportation in megacities need to preserve their efficiency.
To realize this goal, urban managers in Karaj, the provincial center of Alborz, and Isfahan city in Isfahan Province are making efforts to streamline transport services.
Speaking to Borna news website, Karaj Mayor Ali Kamalizadeh said the state-backed Omid Entrepreneurship Fund has allocated 500 billion rials ($3.1 million) in low interest loans to overhaul 200 dilapidated buses.
He added that during a Tuesday meeting with Mohammad Baqer Nobakht, the head of Plan and Budget Organization, it was agreed that participatory bonds will also be allotted to Karaj Municipality to continue the restoration of public transport fleet until a desirable result is delivered.
Details about the worth of bonds and their allocation timing were not revealed.
Kamalizadeh said the financial aid is to be paid in tranches in the current Iranian year (started March 20).
The last measure taken to renew the clunkers active in Karaj public transport fleet dates back to March 2019, when the municipality bought 200 new buses from Oghab Afshan Industrial and Manufacturing Company.
The buses were delivered in two phases and immediately began operating.
“There are hardly 400 buses in the Karaj public transport fleet—by no means adequate for a city of 1.6 million people. Most of the vehicles are old and spew poison into the air,” he rued.
Kamalizadeh said 10 years ago, 1,300 buses were operating in the expanding city west of the capital.
"Since then, the vehicles have been retiring from the fleet one after the other because public buses should normally be in use for a maximum eight years," he added.
Concerns over inadequate transportation has also compelled urban managers in Isfahan to ask the government for financial help to upgrade the city’s subway network
Citing both mismanagement and lack of funds, he said not a single new bus was added to the Karaj public transport system in the past decade.
Observers have said Alborz residents are losing interest in using public transportation due to the constant delays, not to mention the terrible contribution of the rickety vehicles to air pollution.
The mayor hoped that the new measures will help revive the dilapidated fleet and ease the worsening air pollution.
On average, 2.5 million trips are made by vehicles in Karaj daily, of which public transportation’s share is hardly 4%.
Experts say that with the launch of the city’s subway network, the figure will definitely surge.
Karaj Subway
Although no major development is reported in the city’s subway project, officials say that a subway control center was launched in late March.
Kamalizadeh is optimistic about the subway project’s completion, claiming that "the construction of tunnels is advancing rapidly".
In August 2019, he told Iran’s Metropolitan News Agency that Line 2 of the subway will be partially launched in two years, if adequate funds are injected.
Karaj’s subway project was launched in 2006. A 102-km network of five lines, which will be connected to the Tehran-Karaj subway, has been planned.
The project is funded through several sources, including revenues from Karaj Municipality, government budget and sale of bonds.
Isfahan Metro
Concerns over inadequate public transportation have also compelled urban managers in Isfahan to ask the government for financial help to upgrade the city’s subway network.
Amir Ahmad Zandavar, the head of Transportation, Environment and Information Commission at Isfahan City Council, told reporters that Isfahan Metro’s Line 1 still lacks basic equipment while it has been operating for years.
The line requires 7 trillion rials [$43.7 million] to complete and equip the subway line, Zandavar emphasized.
The repair and addition of escalators, elevators and proper ventilation system, as well as some restorations, are required in several stations, he added.
The multiphase construction process of Isfahan Metro’s Line 1 took 15 years and it eventually became operational in 2017. The 20-kilometer Line 1 links the north to the south of the city with 20 stations.
Isfahan's subway map includes a total of three lines (1, 2 and 3), of which only one is operational.
Two stations of Line 1 intersect with lines 2 and 3, which are still under construction.
The construction of tunnels for Line 2 of Isfahan’s subway network has progressed by 22% and is expected to be completed in less than a year.
Isfahan’s Line 2 consists of 22 stations and stretches 24.4 kilometers from Khomeini-Shahr in the west to Zeinabiyeh Street in the northeast.
Line 3, which is the shortest, covers the southwestern part of the city, with seven stations along an 8.8-kilometer tunnel.
According to Isfahan Metro Company, the operating line transports 70,000 passengers daily and the figure is expected to increase with the launch of the other two lines.
