Transport in Croatia

Croatia is connected by air with a large number of foreign (especially European) destinations, while its largest cities are interconnected by a significant number of domestic air routes such as lines between Zagreb and Split, Dubrovnik and Zadar, between Osijek and Rijeka, between Osijek and Split and between Zadar and Pula.

With international passenger trains, Croatia is directly connected with two of the neighbouring (Slovenia and Hungary), and many medium-distanced Central European countries such as Czech Republic, Slovakia (during the summer season), Austria, Germany and Switzerland.

As most of the country's interior-based larger towns are connected with the railway on which regular passenger train operation is provided (opposite to the coastal part of the country), there are many small inland towns, villages and remote areas that are served by the trains running on regional or local corridors.

More on that, there were also significant lack of investments and decrease of proper maintenance in Croatian railway infrastructure, roughly from the time of country's independence (1991) to late 2000s, which mainly resulted in slowing of permitted track speeds, increase of the riding times and decrease in the overall quality of passenger transport, especially since 2010s on Inter City level.

As a result, a fair number of routes lag significantly behind the West-European standards in the form of infrastructural condition.

[9] However, major infrastructure improvements started to occur in early 2010's and continued through 2020's, such as full-profile reconstruction and/or upgrading of the country's international and most of the regional/local corridors.

[10][11][12][13][14][15][16] Those improvements, among other things, results in increasing of both maximum track speed and operation safety, shortening of the travel time and modernization of supporting infrastructure (stations, platforms and other equipment).

[19][20] This is because the largest part of the Croatian motorway and expressway system (autoceste and brze ceste, resp.)

The two longest routes, the A1 and the A3, span the better part of the country and the motorway network connects most major border crossings.

Tourism is of major importance for the Croatian economy, and as most tourists come to vacation in Croatia in their own cars, the highways serve to alleviate summer jams.

Croatia now has a considerable highway density for a country of its size, helping it cope with the consequences of being a transition economy and having suffered in the Croatian War of Independence.

Direction road signs at Croatian motorways have green background with white lettering similar to the German Autobahn.

Polu-autocesta or semi-highway refers to a two-lane, undivided road running on one roadway of a motorway while the other is in construction.

Major roads that aren't part of the motorway system are državne ceste (state routes).

[24] The primary goal of intercity buses is to connect the largest cities in the country with each other in the shortest possible time.

Buses on inter-city level usually offer far more frequent daily services and shorter riding time than trains, mostly due to the large number of competing companies and great quality of the country's freeway network.

Buses running on inter-county lines usually have the same or very similar purpose, except they cross county borders to transport passengers to the more distanced larger town or area.

The bus terminal is close to the main railway station and it is easy to reach by tram lines and by car.

[26] Rijeka is the country's largest cargo port, followed by Ploče which is of great economic importance for the neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina.

[27] Zadar has two public transport ports opened for passenger traffic – one located in the town center served by conventional ship and catamaran services and the other located in the suburb of Gaženica, serving ferry and cruise ship services.

The advantages of the Port of Gaženica are the short distance from the city center (3.5 kilometers), the proximity of the airport and quality traffic connection with the A1 Motorway.

[30] Croatia has about 50 inhabited islands along its coast (most of which are reached from either Zadar or Split ports), which means that there is a large number of local car ferry, conventional ship and catamaran connections.

According to sailing schedules or in case of extraordinary conditions, conventional and catamaran ships can also serve ferry ports.

There are also very small number of car-free islands that are accessible only by conventional ship or catamaran services, such as Silba in northern Dalmatia.

[34] The longest ferry line in Croatia is Zadar - Ist - Olib - Silba (passenger service only) - Premuda - Mali Lošinj (63.4 nautical miles; 117.4 km; 73.0 mi), while the shortest one is between Biograd na Moru and Tkon on the island of Pašman (1.4 nautical miles; 2.6 km; 1.6 mi), both operating in northern Dalmatia.

[36][37] Catamaran and passenger ship services are operated by Jadrolinija and several other companies such as "Krilo - Kapetan Luka" , "G&V Line Iadera" , Tankerska plovidba, "Miatours d.o.o."

The system was built for the needs of refineries in Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as users in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

[47] The system houses the Okoli underground storage facility with a working volume of 553 million cubic meters of natural gas.