TRANSPORTATION Overview: Sudan’s transportation system consists of waterways, railroads, roads, and air service. Facilities in general are in various stages of disrepair and neglect, and, aside from the waterways, all are inadequate for a country the size of Sudan. The Nile River and its tributaries—the Blue Nile and White Nile, the Atbarah, Sobat, and Bahar al Ghazal—form a natural transportation system that has long served as a funnel for commerce between tropical Africa and the eastern Mediterranean. The rail and road systems both date to the colonial era. Of the two, the rail system has been the more extensive and serves the more important population centers except for the southern provinces. Since the early 1980s, the road network has carried an increasing amount of traffic. It continues to undergo expansion, particularly in the North between Khartoum and the Red Sea, but most rural areas of the country remain inaccessible by wheeled transport. Sudan Airways, the national airline, which serves internal as well as international destinations, supplements the limited rail and road networks. The most recent addition to the transportation grid is an oil pipeline that connects the southern oil fields with Khartoum and Port Sudan. Beginning in the 1980s, Sudanese governments have sought to improve the transportation infrastructure, but both attention and funding have been limited, and progress has been slow.
Roads: Sudan has between 20,000 and 25,000 kilometers of roads. Of these, only about 3,500 kilometers are paved, and 4,000 kilometers are all-weather gravel roads; the remainder are tracks passable according to weather conditions. The main road, accounting for half of the paved surface, connects Port Sudan with Khartoum via Kassala.
Railroads: Sudan has 4,725 kilometers of narrow-guage, single-track railroads that serve the northern and central portions of the country. The main line runs from Wadi Halfa on the Egyptian border to Khartoum and southwest to Al Ubayyid via Sannar and Kusti, with extensions to Nyala in Southern Darfur and Waw in Bahr al Ghazal. Other lines connect Atbarah and Sannar with Port Sudan, and Sannar with Ad Damazin. A 1,400-kilometer line serves the al Gezira cotton-growing region. A modest effort to upgrade rail transport is currently underway to reverse decades of neglect and declining efficiency. Service on some lines may be interrupted during the rainy season.
Ports: Sudan has two ports on the Red Sea coast, Port Sudan and Sawakin. Major inland ports, all on the White Nile, include Khartoum, Kusti, Malakal, Juba, and Nimule on the border with Uganda.
Inland Waterways: Sudan has more than 4,000 kilometers of navigable waterways centered on the Nile and its tributaries, but only about 1,700 kilometers are navigable year-round. Barriers to navigation include the six cataracts on the main Nile north of Khartoum, variations in seasonal flow, a series of dams, and the Sudd, the vast papyrus-choked swamp on the upper White Nile. Since the mid-1980s, security problems associated with the rebellion in the South have hindered navigation south of Malakal.
Civil Aviation and Airports: The national carrier, Sudan Airways, provides international service to Europe, Africa, and the Middle East as well as domestic service, over which it holds a monopoly. In the past, it has experienced problems with a lack of trained personnel, scheduling, and maintenance. Currently, efforts are underway to privatize the company. Sudan has an estimated 63 airports, but only 12 have paved runways. The most important is Khartoum International Airport, followed by Port Sudan, Al Ubayyid, and Al Fashir.
Pipelines: In August 1999, a 1,610-kilometer pipeline was completed to carry oil from oil fields in the South to an export terminal on the Red Sea near Port Sudan. By 2003 the pipeline had been extended by 600-plus kilometers, and an 810-kilometer line carried refined petroleum products. A 156-kilometer line carries natural gas.
Telecommunications: As a result of recent investment, telecommunications in urban and outlying regions have improved markedly compared with low levels of service before the late 1990s. In 2002 almost 672,000 telephone lines were in use, producing a ratio of 2.1 lines per 100 inhabitants. These figures compare favorably with just 75,000 lines in 1995 and a line per inhabitant ratio of 0.3. Mobile service has also seen a substantial increase in users, rising from 8,000 subscribers in 1999 to 190,000 in 2002. Internet usage, introduced in 1998, has grown along with the upgrades in lines and equipment from a mere 5,000 users in 1999 to 84,000 in 2002, still well below the number of users in some neighboring countries. Cost and unreliable service have constrained Internet growth. As of 2002, 5.8 million radios and 250,000 television sets were in use in Sudan. International communications are facilitated by two satellite earth stations, one Intelsat (Atlantic Ocean) and one Arabsat. Telecommunications service is a state monopoly exercised through the Sudan Telecommunications Company (SudaTel) and its subsidiaries, which have undergone some privatization since the late 1990s.