Transport in Gibraltar
Due to Gibraltar's compact size and density, walking is the most popular mode of transport making up 48% of trips.
Unlike the United Kingdom and other British Overseas Territories, traffic in Gibraltar drives on the right, as it shares a land border with Spain.
[2] Older roads in Gibraltar, primarily in the city centre, are fairly narrow with a typical speed limit of 50 km/h (31 mph).
The traditional sole road into Spain, Winston Churchill Avenue, intersected with the airport's runway requiring movable barricades to close when aircraft landed or departed resulting in congestion.
Runway access is now closed to everyday road traffic but is still available for exceptional or emergency use as well as pedestrians, cyclists and mobility scooters.
The Government of Gibraltar owned Gibraltar Bus Company operates routes 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8 and 9 with a fleet of 21 buses, 18 of which are Dennis Dart low-floor midibus with Caetano Nimbus bodies and featuring 28 seats and three Mercedes-Benz Sprinter minibuses with Unvi bodies and catering for 15 seated passengers.
[10] The dockyard railway had a roster of 17 locomotives, distinguished by numbers, but four of which also carried names: Gibraltar, Catalan, Rosia, and Calpe.
In 2021, after details emerged about a possible accession agreement of Gibraltar into the Schengen Area, the Chief Minister Fabian Picardo commented on the potential of railway development upwards towards Europe.
Ferries by FRS running twice a week from Gibraltar to Tanger-Med port provide access to the Moroccan railway system.
The ferry between Gibraltar and Algeciras, which existed until 1969, when communications with Spain were severed by the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, was reopened on 16 December 2009, served by the Spanish company Transcoma,[16] which used a catamaran, Punta Europa Segundo in memory of the original ferry that served the cross-Bay route in the 1960s.
[17] Freight ferries between Gibraltar and Algeciras for shipments of food goods were started after the UK's withdrawal from the EU.
In 1931 the seaplane Saro Windhover Captained by Edgar Percival for GB Airways was the first of regular passenger flights from Gibraltar to Morocco.
Scheduled civilian passenger flights are operated by EasyJet, British Airways and Royal Air Maroc.
However, GB Airways discontinued its Madrid service on 30 September 2007 and Iberia subsequently considered using smaller aircraft, possibly from its Air Nostrum regional partner – indicating that neither operator may have been able to fill their planes with passengers.
Following the takeover by EasyJet, GB Airways dropped its direct Gibraltar–London Heathrow service on 28 October 2006[19] despite apparently remaining popular.
In 2003, the land frontier was closed for a day by Spain on the grounds that a visiting cruise liner, the MV Aurora, was affected by contagious food poisoning.
Motorists (and sometimes pedestrians) crossing the border are randomly subjected to long delays and searches by the Spanish authorities.
