Iran

Euro 3 alive and well, Iran 2017.

'Why?' is the first question asked when you tell people your holiday destination. The answer is simple: to the younger generations it is Iran and the various images it conjures up, but to an oldie like me it is Persia, with millenniums of history and tales of Arabian nights. 

 
Tehran BRT. A King Long XMQ610001, on Azadi Street heading towards the city centre, operating BRT Line 1 on the segregated bus lane. Note, to the rear of the bus, a traffic police officer guarding the entrance to the bus lane.
 


'Caution traffic merging from the left', is the first road sign you see when emerging from Imam Khomeini International Airport in Tehran, and yes it is in English, as is much of the road signage in Iran, but driving is far from English in style. At first glance you might think Iranians are poor drivers but if you watch closely they are skilled: slotting into the smallest gap, never using mirrors, indicators or brakes, making sudden three point turns at will and having a total disregard for lane discipline. They do however admit to having a total disregard for pedestrians.  Once you take all this on board, a journey by public transport seems less daunting especially as flights from the UK arrive in the middle of the morning rush hour. Travelling the 50km into the city centre is a quick cure for any overnight grogginess. 

 
Photographed on Keshavarz Boulevard, Tehran, Oghab-Scania 3112 City Bus, fitted with Scania DC09 115 engine, ZF gearbox, 12m Oghab body B45F + 28 standing. Since 2000, Oghab/Scania (Oghab Afshan Industrial and Manufacturing Co.), with a manufacturing base in Semnan, has produced more than 2600 coaches and 1000 buses.


Tehran, the capital of Iran, has 8.5 million residents within the city and over 15 millions in the environs. The city has an extensive local bus network and bus rapid transport (BRT) system, both soon encountered on the journey from the airport with the BRT vehicles at this point using the normal road network and sitting in the traffic congestion. The segregated BRT lane appears in the middle of the dual-carriageway once you enter the central districts, with entry and exit points controlled by traffic police on point duty.

Public transport in the capital generally operates from 6am and finishes between 10 and 11pm. United Bus Company of Tehran has been in existence for over 55 years with a workforce of 8,500 and manages about 6320 city buses, 4398 of these are operated by 16 private sector companies, plus an additional 1078 mini buses.  In all, there are 230 bus lines, covering 2718 km and carrying  approximately 4,500,000 passengers per working day. The majority of buses on normal services are dual-door Mercedes Benz 0457 (Iran Khodro Diesel) or Renault (Shahab Khodro). The cost of a single ticket is less than 10p and must be pre-purchased from ticket booths located close to bus stops or in bus stations, although most locals use preloaded 'tap-out' travel cards. At this point it is worth mentioning passenger etiquette on local services: women use the centre door to board and sit to the rear of the bus, whilst men board at the front and sit on the seats between the front and centre doors. When alighting, the women use the centre door whilst the men tend to use either door, and both sexes then make their way to the front door to either use the 'tap-out' machine attached to the step grab handle or hand a ticket over to the driver. If you do not have a smart card, you can offer cash to the driver who is not permitted to accept it so will often let you board without paying, because offering to pay shows your sincerity! When alighting, generally pushing the bell is unnecessary as drivers have to stop. However, if no one is waiting at the bus stop, the driver might call out to see if someone wants to get off, and if no one replies, the driver usually keeps going. Despite what might look like a hap-hazard system, dwell time at stops is low.

Yutong ZK6128HGE (also displaying Iran Khodro Diesel IKD CO supplier's lettering). Operating on route 71, departing the bus stop outside Zinat Almolk House on Lotf Ali Kahn Zand Street.

The first BRT line was introduced into Tehran in 2007,and today there are ten lines denoted by colour with a single journey using a smart card costing about 5000 Rials (12p). Within the first year, passenger numbers increased by 77 per cent, up from 214,000 to 380,000 daily on the 18km Line 1. Presently the ten BRT lines cover 171.8 km in length and operate 1345 12m rigid and 15m artic buses carrying close to 2,000,000 passengers per day. Bus stops, known as 'Stations', are between 36–44 metres long with a protective cover against sun heat, wind etc and are fully wheel chair accessible. The BRT is a safe, fast and efficient way to get around Tehran, however, using the BRT is not recommended in rush hour. The buses operating the system are showing their age, a result of ongoing international sanctions that has resulted in limited imports. King Long and Yutong artics are much in evidence. The first batch of King Long XMQ6180G 18 meter BRT vehicles were delivered in 2008. The batch was specially adapted for local needs with entry facilities for wheelchairs and a partition dividing the interior into male and female sections.

On leaving Tehran, like most people, we headed to the far south of the country before working back north to the capital. Shiraz is 930km from Tehran and the journey can be made by plane, train or express coach. There are 20,000 intercity buses in Iran and approximately 30 coach operating companies, such as Seirosafar, Ham Safar, and Iran Peyma. Most companies offer several daily departures on popular routes aboard standard and VIP-class coaches. Coaches usually stick to their timetable but 15-minute delays do occur, usually deliberate to allow for late passengers. Up-to-date timetables can be found on each company’s website, however, the websites are not in English so it helps if you know someone who speaks Farsi. Fares are low, for example, travelling on a VIP bus from Tehran to Shiraz, taking up to 13 hours, costs approximately £14, with hourly departures between 11am and 10pm. A focal point for buses in the city centre is the roads around the Arg-Karim Khan fortress with many of the now familiar Mercedes Benz (Iran Khodro Diesel) types laying-over. More modern Yutong ZK6108HG are in evidence. In June 2017 Shiraz became the first city in Iran to test the BYD K9 all-electric demonstrator, using large-capacity lithium-iron-phosphate batteries, that, when fully charged, provide sufficient energy for over 150 kms of urban service. This vehicle is currently touring other major cities in Iran as part of an initiative to improve air quality that started in 2015, when the Tehran public transport fleet took its first hybrid CNG buses.

Departing Shahrdaari Bus Station, no more than a roadside pull-in on Shohada Square (a roundabout), next to  the Arg-Karim Khan fortress, Iran Khodro Diesel Mercedes Benz 0457. Iran Khodro Diesel Company was established as Khawar Industrial Group in 1966. In 1999 it merged with Iran Khodro Company to become Iran Khodro Diesel.

One of the main reasons for visiting Shiraz is to take an excursion to Persepolis, the magnificent Unesco World Heritage Site just a few kilometres away. The site is also home to one of the largest coach parks you are ever likely to see, capable of holding hundreds of vehicles on a single level, windswept, dusty plain. This site provided the opportunity to take a straw-poll of Iranian coach operators’ vehicle preferences. Without doubt the winner, by a big margin, is the Scania chassis/engine, Oghab body combination. Oghab (Oghab Afshan Industrial and Manufacturing Company) has manufactured more than 2600 coaches and 1000 city buses in Iran since 2000. The other popular combination is one which is very familiar, the Volvo B12B 9700, whilst the remainder are a motley collection of familiar European brands, MAN & Neoplan, VDL, Mercedes Benz. The Chinese share of the market is confined to the smaller 9m (35 seater) models, again familiar to operations in many parts of the world.

The 463km journey north through desert, mountainous landscape and Pasargadae, home to a Mercedes Benz 0457 converted into a builder’s store, brought us to Yazd, a city which sat on the silk road route and now has a population of 432,000. The first sighting of public transport in Yazd occurs just after leaving the motorway,and the Atlasi bus and coach station is a small two platform interchange located on a roundabout. Continue down Timsar Fallahi, a long straight avenue, towards the city centre and you come to the much larger Abouzar bus and coach station which is situated on Abouzar Square, and is in fact a very busy roundabout with an abundance of buses. This city has a more diverse fleet, both in colour and vehicle type. There are still large numbers of older Mercedes Benz but interspersed with more modern Renault Eurobuses and Pishro Yadak City Buses. 

The most common coach combination in Iran, Oghab (Oghab Afshan Industrial and Manufacturing Company) 4212 Maral body on Scania K Series. The coach is parked in Salman-e-Farsi with some of Yazd's famous wind-towers behind. These were the original home air conditioning system. 

The journey continues another 324km north to the city of Esfahan, once the capital of Persia, and now the second largest city in Iran with a population of just over two million. Entering the city from the east and travelling parallel with Zayandeh Rood (life giving river) along Salman Farsi Street you cross the intersection with the north/south BRT line at Bozorgmehr Bridge. The line runs north to the Bagh Qoushkhaneh Bus Terminal and south along the Zobahan Freeway. Currently a single 17km system, opened in 2013, operated by Esfahan and Suburbs Bus Company, using red liveried King Long XMQ6180G1 artics and 100 locally built Asia PishroDiesel (formally Pishro Yadak) 12m rigid city buses. The remainder of Esfahan is served by an extensive conventional buses network of 105 routes, utilising a number of small bus stations and roadside interchanges dotted around the city. Yet again the bus fleet consist of Mercedes Benz 0457, Renault Eurobuses, Pishro Yadak and more modern Oghab Scania-3112  vehicles, and a mysterious white three axial rigid that kept disappearing into the distance on Hakim Nezami Street which might be a tri-axle Oghab/Scania Arrian.

The final 450km across the desert on a well maintained motorway takes us via Kashan, a small, very conservative city renowned for its merchant houses and gardens. Arrival at midday coincided with the schools changing shifts, and as both the schools and school transport are segregated, resulting in an abundance of Iranian built Mercedes Benz 0309, Khodro Diesel school buses. The small local bus service is operated by blue Renault Eurobuses. The final part of the journey back to Tehran takes you close to two of Iran's nuclear establishments, the only time politics came into play and when cameras had to be hidden away.

Juggling for position in the evening rush hour, a selection of buses at the municipal bus station at the top of Bagh-e-Goldaste Street, Esfahan.

Owners and drivers are very proud of their Euro 3 credentials, often displaying the fact in bold lettering on the vehicles. Iran's bus manufacturers are making concerted efforts to convert existing vehicles to CNG, develop Euro 6 and hybrid models, often in collaboration with European manufacturers. With the lifting of international sanctions, it can only be a matter of time before all these Euro 3 models disappear and become as scare as Leyland double-deckers in Iran. 

Heading away from the city centre along Amir Kabir Street in Kashan, a Renault Eurobus from the local municipal operator.

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