Transport in Pakistan
In recent years, new national highways have been built, with the addition of motorways which have improved trade and logistics within the country.
Transportation challenges in Pakistan are escalating due to poor planning, inadequate governance, and corrupt practices.
The construction of motorways began in the early 1990s, with the idea of building a world-class road network and reducing the load on the heavily used national highways throughout the country.
The M4 is operational and connects the cities of Pindi Bhatian (M-2), Faisalabad and Multan via Gojra, Toba Tek Singh, Jhang, Shorkot, Pir Mahal and Khanewal.
There, the M-6 (which is proposed with construction work to begin soon) will start; the M6 will end at Hyderabad, where it will meet the existing M9 motorway to Karachi.
During the 1990s, Pakistan began an ongoing project to rebuild all national highways throughout the country specifically to important financial, cargo and textile centers.
[2] Other cities having flyovers and underpasses for the regulation of flow of traffic includes Islamabad-Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Gujranwala, Multan, Faisalabad, Hyderabad, Quetta, Sargodha, Bahawalpur, Sukkur, Larkana, Rahim Yar Khan and Sahiwal etc.
International bus services are also well established in Pakistan and connect to various countries: Another very common form of transport, seen mainly at hotels and airports, are yellow taxis.
There are also numerous privately run services that use cars and minibuses of various types throughout Pakistan, providing a reliable and quick means of transport.
Recently, the Radio Cab was introduced in Pakistan, which allows riders to call a toll-free number to get in touch with the closest taxi stand.
The most popular cars on Pakistani roads are the Suzuki Mehran, Suzuki Cultus, Suzuki Alto, Suzuki Bolan, Daihatsu Coure, Hyundai Santro, Honda Civic, Honda City, Honda Accord, Toyota Corolla, Daihatsu Mira, Nissan Dayz, Toyota Vitz, Kia Sportage, Kia Picanto, Hyundai Elantra, Toyota Fortuner, Toyota Hilux Revo Luxury SUVs and cars are owned by the elite in urban cities and by many large landowners in the villages and rural areas, thus making them a fairly common sight in Pakistan.
[10] Before that, students from Naval College Karachi and Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute also made a successful hybrid car, but Devrim II is the most effective one.
The group, the Pak-Wheelers, had succeeded in 2011 in developing a car with a fuel efficiency of 450 kilometres per liter, but were trying to improve it to more than 700 by using hybrid technology.
The Punjab government decided in 2005 to replace two-stroke three-wheelers with CNG-fitted four-stroke rickshaws in Lahore, Multan, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi and Gujranwala.
Three manufacturers were ordered to produce 60,000 four-stroke vehicles, but they reportedly supplied 2,000 to the government which are now plying on city roads.
There are also companies such as Bykea that offer ride-hailing services with bikes or motorcycles in Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Peshawar and others.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said that a high-speed rail network will be built which will connect Peshawar to Karachi via all major cities of Pakistan during his visit to China in June 2016.
[30] Iran - A 5 ft 6 in (1,676 mm) railway line runs from Zahedan to Quetta, and a 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge line is finished from Zahedan to Kerman in central Iran, linking with the rest of the Iranian rail network.
[35] Meanwhile, a container train service was launched by the former Prime Minister of Pakistan Yousuf Raza Gilani between Islamabad and Istanbul on 14 August 2009.
[29] The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is an under-construction development program to connect Gwadar Port in southern Pakistan to China's northwestern autonomous region of Xinjiang via highways, railways[43] and pipelines to transport oil and gas.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang was among the first advocates of the project; since then General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping, former Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif have become strong supporters of the project.
[44] When the corridor is constructed, it will serve as a primary gateway for trade between China and the Middle East and Africa; in particular, oil from the Middle East could be offloaded at Gwadar, which is located just outside the mouth of the Persian Gulf, and transported to China through the Baluchistan province in Pakistan.
Built by Chinese workers and opened in 2007, Gwadar is undergoing a major expansion to turn it into a full-fledged, deep-water commercial port.
On 19 February 2014, the South China Morning Post reported that Pakistan and China have signed agreements for constructing an international airport at Gwadar, for upgrading a section of the 1,300-kilometre Karakorum Highway connecting to Islamabad, and for a fibre-optic cable to be laid from the Chinese border to the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi.
[46] [47] According to The Diplomat, with the development of the corridor, Central Asia, traditionally an economically closed region owing to its geography and lack of infrastructure, will have greater access to the sea and to the global trade network.
[49] The CPEC has put a debt burden on Pakistan, paving the way for China to use its "debt-trap diplomacy" and gain access to strategic assets.
