In 2005, the Iranian railroad extended up to 8,300 km.

Iran’s extensive network of roads and railroads link most of its towns and all of its cities. Goods unloaded at its major port of entry, namely Bandar Abbas on the Strait of Hormuz, are distributed throughout the country by trucks and freight trains.
The Tehran-Bandar Abbas railroad, opened in 1995, connects Bandar Abbas to the railroad system of Central Asia via Tehran and Mashhad.
According to Hamshahri Online, other major ports include Bandar Anzali and Bandar Torkaman on the Caspian Sea and Khorramshahr and Bandar-e Imam Khomeini along the Persian Gulf. Dozens of cities have airports that serve passenger and cargo planes. All large cities have bus transit systems managed by private companies that offer services to all cities.
Tehran and Isfahan are in the process of constructing underground transit rail lines.
The Islamic Republic of Iran Railroads (IR) is the national state-owned railroad system managed by the Ministry of Roads and Transportation. Raja Passenger Train Company is an affiliate of IR and manages its passenger trains, including international trains linking Tehran-Istanbul and Tehran-Damascus. The Railroad Transportation Company is also an affiliate of the IR which manages freight transport.

Expansion
In recent years, railroads have undergone significant extensions, including the linkage to the western railroad system at the Turkish border, the opening of the Bandar Abbas line providing better access to the sea, and the opening of the MashhadÐSarakhs route as part of the Silk Road that establishes links with the landlocked Central Asian countries.
Former Soviet Union states have railroads using a wider gauge, thus the Iranian railroads maintain break-of-gauge services at borders to Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, and beyond brief wide-track rail segments to the border crossing.
In 2005, the Iranian railroad extended up to 8,300 km. The extent of double-track lines is 1,082 km. The JolfaÐTabriz line is electrified (148 km).
In 2006, the Islamic Republic of Iran Railroads reported having 565 engines, 1,192 passenger coaches and 16,330 wagons. The vast majority of engines are diesel-powered.
However, transportation in Iran is largely road-based. The government plans to transport 3.5 percent of the passenger volume and 8.5 percent of the freight volume by rail during the Fourth Five-Year National Development Plan (2005-10). Extensive electrification is planned.
According to the Ministry of Roads and Transportation, the railroad network expands by about 500 km per year. It converges on Tehran and connects all major parts of the country with the exception of southeast Iran.
Importantly, Iran lies at the crossroads of East-West and North-South transportation corridors that are either active or potentially active. The western railroad extension is linked to Turkey at the RaziÐKapikoi border. A northern connection to Azerbaijan, the Caucasus and Russia has a transit station at the Jolfa border.
The southern routes connect Tehran to the Persian Gulf ports of Bandar Imam and Bandar Abbas. A line to the Caspian Sea ends at the terminal of Amirabad and at Bandar Torkaman, and is part of a North-South corridor extending up to Russia and Scandinavia.
The North-East corridor connects Mashhad and continues further to the station at Sarakhs. For the landlocked countries of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, this line provides access to the sea. A recent connection from Mashhad to Bafq has significantly increased access to the port of Bandar Abbas.
Current railroad projects include a line from Kerman eastward to Zahedan to link up with Quetta in Pakistan. This connection will bridge the last gap of rail connection between the Indian subcontinent and Europe. Also under construction are the KhorramshahrÐBasra line as a link with southern Iraq and a line connecting Mashhad to Herat in Afghanistan.

Advantages
A transport system’s comparative advantage is judged by its fuel efficiency, environmental compatibility and safety. With regard to fuel efficiency, rail transport is considered far superior to road transport.
The transport sector is a key player in the national economy and helps fuel efficiency to lower production and distribution costs, and increase the country’s foreign revenues.
Environmental considerations also favor rail over road transport. Given the superior fuel efficiency of rail transport, emissions of harmful gases is less per unit of output for rail compared to road transport.
In spite of all the advantages, railroad remains a relatively minor player in Iran’s transport sector compared to road transport. To a large extent, this is due to the relatively poor competitive edge of Iranian rail versus road, which in turn depends on many factors, such as the country’s geography, urbanization patterns and overall policy concerning the transport sector through infrastructure investment, pricing, fare controls, etc.

UIC
The International Union of RailroadsÐ-more generally known as the UIC, from its French name, Union Internationale des Chemins de ferÐ-is an international rail transport industry body.
The railroads of Europe had grown up as separate concerns. There were many border changes after the Great War and the Treaty of Versailles. Colonial railroads were the responsibility of the mother country. The UIC was born into this environment in October 1922, with the aim of standardizing things.
A parallel body is the International Union of Public Transport that covers passenger railroads, especially in cities.
A cursory glance at the 10 UIC member-states (Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Serbia, Algeria, Russia, Croatia and Egypt) will make it easier to compare the performance of their railroad networks and companies with those in Iran.

In Iran, for every 100 km on average there are 0.46 km of rails.

Productivity Index
The political and economic conditions of these countries are almost similar to those of Iran. The productivity index reveals the amount of railroad usage.
As per the railroad index of these 10 nations, Iran ranks fourth. In other words, for every 100 kilometers of railroad in Iran, some 0.37 billion units on average of freight and passengers are being transported. However, the number is 2.13 billion units in Russia and 1.30 billion units in Ukraine.
The reason behind such a huge difference is that Russia and Ukraine are located in the international corridor and that explains why their railroad usage is higher than Iran.
In addition, the passenger train transport usage index in Egypt is also higher than Iran’s, because it has more passenger train wagons and a flourishing tourism industry.

1) Railroad Distribution
This parameter shows railroad network congestion across the country. In Iran, for every 100 km on average there are 0.46 km of rails, whereas in Russia this is 500 km. In this respect, Iran ranks ninth, which means railroad congestion is not at an acceptable level and there is a growing need to build new tracks.
Geographical location and population density are important factors for determining the position of a country in the railroad distribution index.

2) Freight Wagons Productivity
This index shows the performance of freight trains and how much they can carry per kilometer on average. Therefore, the more they carry, the higher will be their productivity rate. This also largely depends on the geographical location of the country and whether it is situated in the international corridor.
The railroad transportation network in Iran is dilapidated and the productivity rate of its freight trains is too low. In Iran, for every wagon, some 1,050 tons of freight are being transported, which compared to Russia’s 3,080 tons is too little. For every freight wagon in Turkey, some 580 tons of freight are being transported, which means they are doing far better than their oil-rich neighbor Iran.

3) Passenger Wagons Productivity
In Iran, every passenger wagon annually carries 7,340 passengers per kilometer on average, whereas the figure is 3,950 people per kilometer in Turkey and 5,220 passengers per kilometer in Egypt. This means Iran ranks first among these 10 countries and indicates that rail transport is a major form of public transport in the country.

Conclusion
Based on the above-mentioned indexes, it can be safely concluded that Iran requires more investments for establishing new railroad networks and manufacturing more train wagons, especially in participation with the private sector.
However, because of the measures taken in recent years to improve the railroad network, it should be noted that more people and more goods are now using rail transport.
Additionally, freight transport via railroad is not up to the mark yet, especially in comparison to passenger transport, and particularly since it is faster and cost-effective.
Despite Iran’s location in the international corridor, the country has failed to optimize its railroad transport system.
In brief, some of the challenges faced by the railroad transport system are as follows:
- Lack of trust among traders in using railroad to transport their goods
- Inefficient capacity of regional corridors to meet the high volume of transit goods
- Absence of information in the transit corridor member-states
- Problems in customs clearance create lack of interest
- No meetings, seminars and conferences among the transit corridor member-states
- Absence of modern equipment and facilities in the transit corridors
- Inattention to foreign policies of regional states
- Inefficient system among member-states which hinder transit operations and transport
- Poor private investments in the international transit business
- Dilapidated railroad transport system
- Stiff competition by the road transportation system, and
- The bigger size of the country.
These are the main reasons behind the railroad transport system’s inefficiency in Iran. To improve the situation, it is important to establish a comprehensive transport system, with special priority given to rail transport because of economic, political and security considerations, as well as the fact that it is fuel efficient, environmentally friendly and safe.