Buses in Jordan
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The observations and pictures date form a visit to Jordan in May 2009. In addition information has been obtained from sources as indicated and the persons indicated below.

This site is divided into several subpages.
Please click on the links below:

Amman city buses UPDATE 2015-07-29

Coaches and long distance buses

Interurban buses

Other buses

Bus builders (ELBA, COMEVA, old buses)

Hedjaz Railway

Akaba Railway

Jordan is in many aspects a very developed country and Amman is a large, modern city. A very rapid population increase over the past decades has made Amman from a very small town some 50 years ago to the large urban area it is now. Other cities are much smaller, though especially Akaba has been expanding recently. The northwest of the country is densily populated, the rest of the country is mainly desert and, apart from the mountain areas south of Amman, has few inhabitants and no large towns.

Urban bus services with large modern buses can be found in Amman. In 1975 the Public Transport Corporation was formed, around 2004 Autobus came into existence, in 2010 Citybus took over bus very soon withdrew, Amman Transport Bus took over.. These companies and some small private companies are described on the Amman city bus pages.In other cities urban services, if they exist, are by medium sized privately owned Japanese midibuses, mostly Mitsubishi Rosa.

Interurban services are by privately owned midibuses, though smaller numbers of large, mostly secondhand and old large buses can be found. In stark contrast to these are the company owned coaches which are very modern and new. The growth in tourism has lead to the creation of new companies transporting tourists and providing luxury long distance regular services. While Jordan Express Transport and Tourism (JETT) for a long time was the only operator in this market, it now has to compete with a dozen other ones.

The famous Hedjaz Railway now only has some tourist steam trains, the service from Amman to Damascus has (temporarily) been suspended though it is said the line will be rehabilitated. A modern railway with phosphate trains, the Aqaba Railway Company, runs from Aqaba northeast to a mining area.

Jordan now has one important bus builder: ELBA, which assembles Mercedes chassis and builds modern buses and coaches which are also exported. COVEMA has been building some medium-sized buses.

Contributions were made by:
Ton van der Burg and Cees Bos (1984)
Gerard Klinge (2009)
Günter Monschau (2010)

(This site will be further developed over time)

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