Transportation and Post and Telecommunications

2004-03-01 18:00

Highways and Railroads There were no public roads in old Tibet. Transportation of goods depended solely on man and animal power. During the 1950s PLA soldiers and local people built several highways connecting Lhasa and some other parts of China To day, a 22,000-kilometre highway network radiating from Lhasa consisting of 15 main highways and 315 subsidiary roads has been formed.

Most important are the Sichuan-Tibet, Qinghai-Tibet, Xinjiang-Tibet, Yunnan-Tibet and Sino-Nepalese highways The Qinghai-Tibet Highway runs 2,122 kilometers from Xining to Lhasa. About 80 percent of the goods entering Tibet every year, nearly 500,000 tons, are carried on this road.

The Sichuan-Tibet Highway covers the 2,413 kilometres from Chengdu to Lhasa The Xinjiang-Tibet Highway, from Yecheng to Gartok, runs for 1,179 kilometres. The Yunnan-Tibet Highway, from Xiaguan to Markam, is 315 kilometres long, while the Chinese section of the Sino Nepalese Highway stretches 736 kilometres from Lhasa to Zhamu entry/exit port.

The region has a Highway/Railway Joint Transport Company which handles every kind of business regarding passenger or goods transport in or out of Tibet. It has the capacity to handle containerized goods and less-than-freight traffic in quantities exceeding one million tons.

In 1954 there were 54 automobiles for civil use regionwide Today there are 27,000 Laid in the 1970s, the 1,080-kilometre oil pipeline from Golmud in Qinghai to Lhasa has a designed annual capacity of 250,000 tons and an actual annual load of 100,000-120,000 tons. The first phase of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway was completed in the early 1980s and is now carrying both cargo and passengers. Running 846.9 kilometres from Xining, the capital city of Qinghai in the east to Golmud in western Qinghai, the line is built at more than 3,000 metres above sea level on average, rising to 3,700 metres at its highest Civil Aviation Lhasa has scheduled fights to Bei jing, Chengdu, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chongqing, and Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal.

The distance by air from Lhasa to Chengdu is a little more than 1,100 kilometres. Each year more than 100,000 passengers fly this route along with 1,600 tons of freight Renovations to Gonggar Airport outside of Lhasa now allow access to large passenger aircraft like Boeing 767 The 250-million-yuan Banda Airport, the world's highest, was completed in September 1994. Post and Telecommunications In 1994 Tibet had more than 120 post offices, 73,000 kilometres of postal service routes, and 650 kilometres of air mail routes Satellite long-distance transmission is availahle in cities and towns and half of the counties; they are likewise part of the long-distance telephone automatic switching network.

Recent years have seen the establishment of the Lhasa Programme-controlled Telephone Bureau, the Postal Hub Building, 900 megacell mobile phones and a beeper paging system covering five districts There are seven satellite transmission stations and 36 satellite ground stations. There are 301 long-distance telephone circuits; long-distance automatic switching capacity is 450 terminals and total telephone exchange capacity is 42,800 circuits.

Intraurban capacity is 35,000 circuits and dial service 11,000 The integration of long-distance and local calling systems in cities and towns has been fundamentally realized. A modern post and telecommunications network revolving around Lhasa, linking the cities and rural areas, has been established.

Lhasa is now part of the international and domestic automatic telephone network Using programmecontrolled telephones, one can dial direct to more than 180 countries and regions in the world and throughout China. Subscribers can directly communicate by telephone with most countries. Some telegraph lines can transmit telexes.

Lhasa has express mail and special delivery service to nearly 200 cities in China. The region has two international postal routes passing into neighbouring countries at the Zhamu entry/exit port and Yadong in Xigaze Prefecture.