Iceland - Transportation



There are no railways or navigable inland waters. All important towns and districts can be reached by bus and truck via interurban roads. In 2002, total roadway was estimated at 12,691 km (7,886 mi), of which only 3,262 km (2,027 mi) were paved. Registered passenger cars in 2000 numbered 151,409 and there were 19,428 commercial vehicles.

The merchant marine fleet consisted of one ship, with a total capacity of 1,816 GRT (2,500 DWT) in 2002, including one chemical tanker, one container, and one oil tanker. In addition, there are about 1,000 civilian vessels, mostly small fishing craft. Most of the import and export trade is handled in Reykjavík. Akureyri, on the north coast, is the largest port serving the outlying areas.

Iceland had 86 airports in 2001, 13 of which had paved runways. The principal airport is Keflavik at Reykjavík. In the 1950s, Icelandic Airlines was the first transatlantic airline to offer fares drastically lower than those of the major carriers. Icelandair, formed by a merger of Icelandic Airlines and Iceland Air in the early 1970s, operates domestic routes as well as international flights to the UK, Scandinavia, and FRG, and transatlantic flights with stopovers at Reykjavík. In 2001 1,357,900 passengers were carried on scheduled domestic and international flights.

User Contributions:

1
keith
thank you for posting this, i am doing a report on iceland transportation, :)

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