Transport in North Korea


Transport in North Korea is constrained by economic problems and government restrictions. Public transport predominates, and most of it is electrified.

Restrictions on freedom of movement

is tightly controlled. The standard route to and from North Korea is by plane or train via Beijing. Transport directly to and from South Korea was possible on a limited scale from 2003 until 2008, when a road was opened. Freedom of movement in North Korea is also limited, as citizens are not allowed to move around freely inside their country. On October 14, 2018, North and South Korea agreed to restore inter-Korean rail and road transportation. On November 22, 2018, North and South Korea reopened a road on the Korean border which had been closed since 2004. On November 30, 2018, inter-Korean rail transportation resumed when a South Korean train crossed into North Korea for the first time since November 2008. On December 8, 2018, a South Korean bus crossed into North Korea.

Roads

Fuel constraints and the near absence of private automobiles have relegated road transportation to a secondary role. The road network was estimated to be around in 1999, up from between and in 1990, of which only, 7.5%, are paved. However, The World Factbook lists of roads with only paved as of 2006. As for the road quality, drivers will often swerve and change lanes to evade potholes, and this includes going into opposite-direction lanes at times. Likewise, sections under repair may not be properly signalled, so oncoming traffic should always be expected even on a divided motorway.
There are three major multilane highways: a expressway connecting Pyongyang and Wonsan on the east coast, a expressway connecting Pyongyang and its port, Nampo, and a four-lane motorway linking Pyongyang and Kaesong. The overwhelming majority of the estimated 264,000 vehicles in use in 1990 were for the military. Rural bus service connects all villages, and cities have bus and tram services. Since 1945/1946, there is right-hand traffic on roads. In cities, driving speeds are set by which lane a driver is in. The speed limits are,, and for the first, second, and subsequent lanes from the right, respectively. A white-on-blue sign informs about this. The leftmost lane, if it is number 3 from the right or higher and is not a turning lane, is often left vacant, even by tourist buses, while the second-from-right lane is generally used to overtake vehicles from lane one, such as public transport buses and trams.
Besides the blue in-city sign, all other occasions, such as motorways and roads outside cities, use the more widely known red-circle-with-number-inside sign to post speed limits. On motorways, the typical limit is and for lanes from the right, respectively, as posted on the Pyongyang-Kaesong highway, for example. The rightmost lane of a motorway is sometimes, as seen on the Pyongyang–Myohyang highway, limited to near on-ramp joining points.
Automobile transportation is further restricted by a series of regulations. According to North Korean exile Kim Ji-ho, unless a driver receives a special permit it is forbidden to drive alone. Other permits are a military mobilization permit, a certificate of driver training, a fuel validity document, and a mechanical certificate.
Although it drives on the right, North Korea has imported various used right-hand drive RHD vehicles from Japan, from tourist buses to Toyota Land Cruisers and HiAces.
As of 2017, electric bicycles are becoming popular in Pyongyang; about 5% of bicycles are electric. Both locally produced and Chinese electric bicycles were available.
As of 2016 there is of road which is 25% of South Korea's road system in length.

Public transport

There is a mix of locally built and imported trolleybuses and trams in the major urban centres of North Korea. Earlier fleets were obtained from Europe and China.

Railways

The Korean State Railway is the only rail operator in North Korea. It has a network of over of standard gauge and of narrow gauge lines; as of 2007, over of the standard gauge, along with of the narrow gauge lines are electrified. The narrow gauge segment runs in the Haeju peninsula.
Because of lack of maintenance on the rail infrastructure and vehicles, the travel time by rail is increasing. It has been reported that the trip from Pyongyang to Kaesong can take up to six hours.

Water transport

Water transport on the major rivers and along the coasts plays a growing role in freight and passenger traffic. Except for the Yalu and Taedong rivers, most of the inland waterways, totaling, are navigable only by small boats. Coastal traffic is heaviest on the eastern seaboard, whose deeper waters can accommodate larger vessels. The major ports are Nampho on the west coast and Rajin, Chongjin, Wonsan, and Hamhung on the east coast. The country's harbor loading capacity in the 1990s was estimated at almost 35 million tons a year. There is a continuing investment in upgrading and expanding port facilities, developing transportation—particularly on the Taedong River—and increasing the share of international cargo by domestic vessels.
Ports in North Korea
Chongjin, Haeju, Hamhung, Kimchaek, Kaesong, Rasŏn, Nampo, Sinuiju, Songnim, Sonbong, Ungsang, Wonsan

Merchant marine

In the early 1990s, North Korea possessed an oceangoing merchant fleet, largely domestically produced, of 68 ships, totalling 465,801 gross-registered tons, which included 58 cargo ships and two tankers. As of 2008, this has increased to a total of 167 vessels consisting mainly of cargo and tanker ships.
Fleet by type-
Total167
Bulk carrier11
Cargo121
Carrier1
Chemical tanker4
Container3
Cargo liner3
Petroleum tanker19
Reefer ship4
Roll on/Roll off1

Ferry Service

North Korea maintains the Man Gyong Bong 92, a ferry connecting Rajin and Vladivostok, Russia.

Air transport

North Korea's international air connections are limited in frequency and numbers. As of 2011, scheduled flights operate only from Pyongyang's Pyongyang Sunan International Airport to Beijing, Dalian, Shenyang, Shanghai, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Moscow, Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, and Kuwait International Airport. Charters to other destinations operate as per demand. Prior to 1995 many routes to Eastern Europe were operated including services to Sofia, Belgrade, Prague, and Budapest, along with others.
Air Koryo is the country's national airline., Air China also operates flights between Beijing and Pyongyang. In 2013, MIAT Mongolian Airlines began operating direct charter services from Ulaanbattar to Pyongyang with Boeing 737-800 aircraft.
Internal flights are available between Pyongyang, Hamhung, Haeju, Hungnam, Kaesong, Kanggye, Kilju, Najin, Nampo, Sinuiju, Samjiyon, Wonsan, Songjin, and Chongjin. All civil aircraft are operated by Air Koryo, which has a fleet of 19 passenger and cargo aircraft, all of which are Soviet or more modern Russian types.
As of 2013, the CIA estimates that North Korea has 82 usable airports, 39 of which have permanent-surface runways.
Airports – with paved runways-
Total39
> 3
to 22
to 8
to 2
< 4

Airports – with unpaved runways-
Total43
to 3
to 17
to 15
< 8

It was reported that North Korean air traffic controllers had been cut off from the international global satellite communications network in 2017 because North Korea had not made the required payments. Traffic controllers at Pyongyang Sunan International Airport had to use conventional telephone lines to inform their counterparts at Incheon International airport that the flight containing North Korean delegates to the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in South Korea had taken off.

Vehicle markings

Road vehicles in North Korea bear distance stars. These are paint markings which display how far the particular vehicle has traveled without incident. Each star represents travelled without an accident. The bus in this example has three stars, indicating that it has traveled over without a crash.
The DPRK licence plate background color denotes the vehicle type;
Blue - State vehicle
Black - Military vehicle
Yellow - Private vehicle - permitted persons who have contributed greatly to DPRK
Green - Foreign Non-governmental Organizations
Red - Diplomatic