Sofia - Transport and Infrastructure

Transport and Infrastructure

With its developing infrastructure and strategic location, Sofia is a major hub for international railway and automobile transport. Three of the ten Trans-European Transport Corridors cross the city: 4, 8 and 10. All major types of transport (except water) are represented in the city. It is home to eight railway stations, the biggest of which is the Central Railway Station. Just next to it is the new Central Bus Station. A number of other bus stations allow interurban and international trips from different parts of the city. The Sofia Airport with its new second terminal, finished in 2006, handled some 3.47 million passengers in 2011.

Public transport is well-developed with bus (2380 km network), tram (308 km network, and trolleybus (193 km network, lines running in all areas of the city, although some of the vehicles are in a poor condition. The Sofia Metro became operational in 1998, and now has two lines and 27 stations. As of 2012, the system has 31 kilometers of track. Six new stations were opened in 2009, two more in April 2012, and eleven more in August 2012. Construction works on the extension of the first line are underway and it is expected to reach the airport by 2014. A third line is currently in the late stages of planning and it is expected that its construction starts in 2014. This line will complete the proposed subway system of three lines with about 65 km of lines. The master plan for the Sofia Metro includes three lines with a total of 63 stations. In recent years the marshrutka, a private passenger van, began serving fixed routes and proved an efficient and popular means of transport by being faster than public transport but cheaper than taxis. As of 2005 these vans numbered 368 and serviced 48 lines around the city and suburbs. There are around 13,000 taxi cabs operating in the city. Low fares in comparison with other European countries, make taxis affordable and popular among a big part of the city population.

Private automobile ownership has grown rapidly in the 1990s; more than 1,000,000 cars were registered in Sofia after 2002. The city has the 4th-highest number of automobiles per capita in the European Union at 546.4 vehicles per 1,000 people. The municipality was known for minor and cosmetic repairs and many streets are in a poor condition. This is noticeably changing in the past years. There are different boulevards and streets in the city with a higher amount of traffic than others. These include Tsarigradsko shose, Cherni Vrah, Bulgaria, Slivnitsa and Todor Aleksandrov boulevards, as well as the city's ring road, where long chains of cars are formed at peak hours and traffic jams occur regularly. Consequently traffic and air pollution problems have become more severe and receive regular criticism in local media. The extension of the underground system is hoped to alleviate the city's immense traffic problems. As per recent statistics, the last enlargement of the underground system has eleviated the air pollution in the city by 20% and lowered the traffic accidents by 15%.

Sofia has a unique, very large combined heat and power (CHP) plant. Virtually the entire city (900,000 households and 5,900 companies) is centrally heated, using residual heat from electricity generation (3,000 MW) and gas- and oil-fired heating furnaces; total heat capacity is 4,640 MW. The heat distribution piping network is 900 km long and comprises 14,000 substations and 10,000 heated buildings.