Transport in Tanzania includes road, rail, air and maritime networks. The road network is 86,472 kilometres (53,731 mi) long, of which 12,786 kilometres (7,945 mi) is classified as trunk road and 21,105 kilometres (13,114 mi) as regional road. The rail network consists of 3,682 kilometres (2,288 mi) of track. Commuter rail service is in Dar es Salaam only. There are 28 airports, with Julius Nyerere International being the largest and the busiest. Ferries connect Mainland Tanzania with the islands of Zanzibar. Several other ferries are active on the countries' rivers and lakes.
Lake Victoria ferries are motor ships for ferry services carrying freight and/or vehicles and/or passengers between Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya on Lake Victoria.
The Tazara Railway, also called the Uhuru Railway or the Tanzam Railway, is a railway in East Africa linking the port of Dar es Salaam in east Tanzania with the town of Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia's Central Province. The single-track railway is 1,860 km (1,160 mi) long and is operated by the Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA).
Zambia Railways (ZR) is the national railway company of Zambia, one of the two major railway organisations in Zambia. The other system is the binational TAZARA Railway (TAZARA) that interconnects with the ZR at Kapiri Mposhi and provides a link to the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam.
The Cape to Cairo Railway was an unfinished project to create a railway line crossing Africa from south to north. It would have been the largest and most important railway of that continent. It was planned as a link between Cape Town in South Africa and Port Said in Egypt.
The Central Line, formerly known as the Tanganyika Railway is the most important railway line in Tanzania, apart from TAZARA. It runs west from Dar es Salaam to Kigoma on Lake Tanganyika via Dodoma. A branch leads to Mwanza on Lake Victoria.
MV Bukoba was a Lake Victoria ferry that carried passengers and cargo along Tanzania's Lake Victoria between the Tanzanian ports of Bukoba and Mwanza City. MV Bukoba was built in about 1979 and had capacity for 850 tons of cargo and 430 passengers.
The Uganda Railways Corporation (URC) is the parastatal railway of Uganda. It was formed after the breakup of the East African Railways Corporation (EARC) in 1977 when it took over the Ugandan part of the East African railways.
Rail transport in Tanzania is conducted by two companies. It has historically used narrow gauge trackage, but planning and construction of new standard gauge lines is underway as of 2017.
Kidatu is a town in central Tanzania, located in Kilombero District, Morogoro Region. The local population is about 3,300. The primary economic activity is the large Illovo sugar cane plantation and factory which produces 130,000 tonnes of sugar per year.
The Usambara Railway was the first railway to be built in German East Africa and what is today Tanzania.
The Trans Africa Railway Corporation is a company that runs the break of gauge transshipment station at Kidatu, Tanzania.
There are several planned railway lines in Rwanda, including a line to Tanzania. Historical railways are limited to three industrial railways.
Railway stations in Tanzania include:
Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA) is a parastatal public corporation acting under the aegis of the Ministry of Infrastructure Development, that has the responsibility "to manage and operate" the ocean ports and lake ports of the country of Tanzania. The Tanzania Ports Authrorty headquarters are located in Mchafukoge ward of Ilala District in Dar es Salaam Region. It is a member of the Port Management Association of Eastern and Southern Africa.
The East African Railway Master Plan is a proposal for rejuvenating the railways serving Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda, and building new railways to serve Rwanda and Burundi. The objective is to further the economic development of East Africa by increasing the efficiency and speed, and lowering the cost, of transporting cargo between major ports on the Indian Ocean coast and the interior.
The history of rail transport in Tanzania began in the late nineteenth century.
Marine Services Company Limited (MSCL) is a Tanzanian company that operates ferries, cargo ships and tankers on three of the African Great Lakes, namely Lake Victoria, Lake Tanganyika and Lake Nyasa. It provides services to neighbouring Burundi, DR Congo, Zambia and Malawi.
The Dar es Salaam commuter rail, informally known as Treni ya Mwakyembe, is an urban and suburban commuter rail network serving the Tanzanian commercial city of Dar es Salaam. It is one of the two initiatives taken by the government to ease travel within the congested city; the other being the Dar es Salaam bus rapid transit system. Services are provided by the Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA) and the Tanzania Railways Corporation (TRC).
The Tanzania Standard Gauge Railway is a railway system, under construction, linking the country to the neighbouring countries of Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi, and through these to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as part of the East African Railway Master Plan. The new standard gauge railway (SGR), is intended to replace the old, inefficient metre-gauge railway system.
