Transport in Serbia

Transport in Serbia includes transport by road, rail, water and air. Road transport incorporates a comprehensive network of major (i.e. state) and minor (i.e. municipal) roads. Rail transport is fairly developed, although dual track and electrification are not very common. Water transport revolves around river transport while air transport around country's two main international airports.

Road transport

Motorway network

  finished

  under construction

  planned

Serbian road network carries the bulk of traffic in the country: some 56.4 million passengers (carried by buses) and 9.9 million tons (carried by trucks) in 2016.^[1] The road network are of comparatively lower quality to the Western European standards because of lack of financial resources for their maintenance in the last 20 years.

As of 2016, total length of roads is 45,419 km; major roads are categorized as "state roads" (with total length of 16,179 km) while minor roads are categorized as "municipal roads" (with total length of 23,780 km).^[2][3][4] By type of roads:

• motorways: 745 km
• expressways: 24 km
• other roads (paved): 29,300 km
• other roads (unpaved): 15,250 km

In 2015, statistics on registered vehicles were as follows:^[5]

• 1,833,215 passenger cars (1 per 3.8 inhabitants)
• 9,492 buses and coaches
• 198,966 lorries and vans
• 64,241 motorcycles and mopeds

Coach transport is very extensive: almost every place in the country is connected by bus, from largest cities to the villages. In addition, there are international routes to the neighboring countries (such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, and Macedonia) as well as to Western Europe (mainly to countries of Western Europe with large Serb diaspora such as Germany, Austria, France, Switzerland, etc.). Routes, both domestic and international, are served by more than 100 bus companies, biggest of which are Lasta and Niš-Ekspres.

Railway network

Rail transport

Railways remain a major mode of freight transportation with 11.9 million tons carried in 2016, while being fairly minor mode for passenger transport carrying just over 17 million passengers in 2016 (6 million if Belgrade urban rail system is excluded).^[6][7]

The Serbian railway system consists of 3,739 km of rails of which 295 km is double track (7.9% of the network). Some 1,279 km of track (33.6% of the network) is electrified.^[8] Railroads are categorized as "main lines", "regional lines", "local lines" or "manipulative lines". Serbia has rail links with all of adjacent countries, except Albania.

The national railway company is Serbian Railways.

Air transport

The air traffic in 2016 reached 5 million passengers and over 10 thousand tons in annual cargo tonnage.^[9][10]

The national carrier of Serbia is Air Serbia, a full service airline which carried some 2.6 million passengers in 2016 flying to 41 international destinations in 28 countries (including intercontinental flights to New York City).^[11] Major established companies that fly to Serbia include Lufthansa, Turkish Airlines, Aeroflot, Hainan Airlines (conducting intercontinental flights to Beijing), Qatar Airways, Etihad Airways, Alitalia, Austrian Airlines, Swiss International Air Lines, and LOT Polish Airlines. Currently, the following low-cost airlines are flying to Serbia: Ryanair, EasyJet, Wizz Air, Flydubai, Vueling, Transavia, Norwegian Air Shuttle, and Germania Flug.

There are 39 airports and 2 heliports in Serbia. The only airports with regular passenger traffic include Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport which served almost 5 million passengers in 2016 and is a hub of flagship carrier Air Serbia, and Niš Constantine the Great Airport which mainly caters low-cost airlines.^[12][13]

Terminal 2 of Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport

• Airports with paved runways: 16
  • over 3,047 m (over 10,000 ft): 2
  • from 2,438 to 3,047 m (8,000 to 9,999 ft): 4
  • from 1,524 to 2,437 m (5,000 to 7,999 ft): 4
  • from 914 to 1,523 m (3,000 to 4,999 ft): 2
  • under 914 m (under 3,000 ft): 4
• Airports with unpaved runways: 23
  • from 1,524 to 2,437 m (5,000 to 7,999 ft): 2
  • from 914 to 1,523 m (3,000 to 4,999 ft): 9
  • under 914 m (under 3,000 ft): 12

Water transport

Serbia has a fairly developed inland water transport which carried little more than 2 million tons of cargo in 2016.^[14]

There are 1,716 kilometers of navigable inland waterways (1,043 km of navigable rivers and 673 km of navigable canals), which are almost all located in northern third of the country. The most important inland waterway is the Danube (part of Pan-European Corridor VII). Other navigable rivers include Sava, Tisza, Begej and Timiş River, all of which connect Serbia with Northern and Western Europe through the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal and North Sea route, to Eastern Europe via the Tisza, Begej and Danube Black Sea routes, and to Southern Europe via the Sava river. The largest river port is Novi Sad (1.18 million tons of cargo tonnage in 2016), while other river ports include Belgrade, Smederevo, Pančevo, Prahovo, Apatin, Bačka Palanka (all on Danube), Šabac (on Sava), and Senta (on Tisza).^[15]

Merchant river fleet include 149 ships: 146 cargo vessels (with total capacity of 173 thousand tons) and 3 passenger ships.^[16]

Pipelines

The natural gas transportation system comprises 3,177 kilometers of trunk and regional natural gas pipelines with 450 million cubic meter underground gas storage facility at Banatski Dvor.^[17] There are 155 kilometers of crude oil pipelines connecting Pančevo and Novi Sad refineries as a part of trans-national Adria oil pipeline.^[18]

See also

• Transport in Belgrade
• Vehicle registration plates of Serbia

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Transport in Serbia.