History of highway and freeway construction in Iran

Roads facilitate various ways of transportation, for instance trucks, passenger cars, public buses, motorcycles, and even bicycles. Trucks transport goods from points of production, ie. farms and factories, to markets and shopping centers directly. Individuals use roads for safe and efficient rides on passenger cars, motorcycles, and bicycles. A development system of roads allows fire stations, medical services, and other state-run agencies to provide emergency services to the general public wherever needed.

The 18^th century marks development of the modern techniques of road construction. Waterproof surfaces and better drainage systems, innovations of the time, were introduced for the first time in the 18^th century. Today, engineers use variety of materials and construction techniques to build roads and highways to make the system of roads cope with the high volume of automobile and truck traffic.

Today, roads are considered signs of development in any country. Roads and highways are sorely needed in the developing countries and Islamic Republic of Iran is no exception to this.

The following is a report on history of roads and highways in Iran since the victory of Islamic Revolution, with facts and figures released by Petroenergy Information Network.

At the beginning of the Islamic Revolution in Iran (1979), statistics on the country's roads indicated 224 km of freeways, 41,000 km of main and access roads and no highways.

The statistics in 2003 rose to 1,000 km of freeways, 3,800 km of highways and 62,000 km of main and access roads. This pointed to the building of over 776 km of freeways, 3,800 km of highways and 21,000 km of main and access roads during this period. In spite of the Iraqi-imposed war, which lasted nearly for one decade, one can say that the majority of road building activities in Iran took place in the second decade of the Islamic Revolution.

The length of roads built from 1989 (end of the Iraqi-imposed war) to 2002 includes 541 km of freeways, 2,540 km of highways and 11,000 km of main and access roads.

Although at the beginning of the Islamic Revolution the existing statistics pointed to the existence of 13,800 km of main roads and 27,500 km of access roads, the total main roads built according to international standards of the time (and standards of present time) were limited to routes between Zahedan and Birjand, Torbat Heidariyeh and Zahedan, Kerman, Bojnurd and Mashhad, small parts of Tehran-Mashhad route and parts of Ahvaz-Abadan route. As statistics show, over 70 percent of road building operations during the post-revolution era took place in the decade beginning from 1989 (after the end of the Iraqi-imposed war).

In that period, big projects were implemented for expansion of the main road network of the country, small samples of which can be seen in Tehran-Mashhad route. The previous route connecting Tehran to Mashhad passed through natural terrains and lacked necessary safety facilities. It also covered a longer distance mainly due to the route between Neishabour and Shahrud.

At any rate, high traffic on this route drew the attention of the officials concerned to the need to expand pivotal roads. On the other hand, such plans were plagued with problems such as lack of necessary credits and shortcomings originating from the imposed war, which made it impossible to invest in building roads and expanding the existing communication routes.

At the beginning of the transportation and communication decade (1992-2002) in 1992, the Ministry of Roads and Transportation came up with an idea to build four-lane highways using the existing infrastructures. This marks the beginning of Iranian-style road construction. That time the only four-lane highway that existed in Iran was part of Mashhad-Quchan Road.

However, this marked the beginning of a new stage of road building in Iran. Based on this method, a second lane was constructed along the existing main roads for traffic flow and for reducing fatal road accidents. In fact, that time the private sector was not ready to make investments for construction of freeways, and general budget of the government cannot afford contributing to freeway building projects.

Therefore, with respect to these points, the decisions taken at that time were logical and originated from this idea that although the existing substandard roads were not enough for the country’s vital communication routes but they were parts of national assets and had to be used in an optimal manner.

(To be contd.)

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