The Ministry of Transportation was established in 1372 AH (1953 AD) to oversee all aspects of transport: roads, railways, and ports. In 1395 AH (1975 AD) the Kingdom's ministries and its public institutions went through a reformation process that led to establishing the Saudi ports, the Saudi railways and the ministry have become responsible for planning, designing, constructing and maintaining the roads and the bridges. Later, a specialized agency for transport was established for planning and supervising the sectors of land and maritime transport and coordinate between its different means, also, to set the regulations governing various transport sectors and issue the necessary licenses for land and maritime transport activities. At the year 1424 AH (2003 AD) the Ministry of Transportation became the Ministry of Transport.
In 2016, the Council of Ministers' decree stated that the Minister of Transport should have supervisory role on the air transport sector, with the title of President of the General Civil Aviation Authority. The authority is responsible for overseeing the operational and safety regulations, the air navigation services and the operations at the Kingdom's airports. It is worth mentioning that the Kingdom's airports are 27 airports: five international airports, 12 regional airports, and ten domestic airports, all of which offer all needed services for air travelers.
Ministry Role
The Ministry of Transport is responsible for studying, designing, implementing and maintaining the roads projects outside the cities and the urban areas, along with playing the legislator role to all the transport sectors entities' services within the Kingdom. It is within the Ministry's obligations to implement and maintain ring roads, bridges, mountain roads projects and upgrade the road services like turning single road to double, in all the kingdom's regions.
In addition to implementing the projects of parkways and the dirt roads that serve populated areas like towns and villages with international standards that allow expansion in the future to serve more traffic. Moreover, it is committed to achieving the initiative of connecting the Kingdom with the rest of the world as an international logistics hub to provide effective services to all beneficiaries.
The Ministry values
- Quality in service
- Integrity and mastery
- Teamwork
- Transparency
- Creativity
The objectives of the Ministry
- Raising the level of land, maritime and air transport services by allowing the private sector investments and give it the opportunity to finance and operate the transport sector, with worldwide technical high-quality standards. This window will transfer the international expertise and experience to the ministry and encourage the development of the national carrier.
- Expand the application of intelligent transport systems on roads and in all types of vehicles to raise the level of safety and increase the efficiency.
- Enact the legislations governing transport, and support the private sector to establish and operate multimodal transport stations for passengers, goods, and logistics growth centers.
- Raise the performance efficiency and enhance the quality and transparency standards in the Ministry's activities by automating the work, develop the procedures, display them on appropriate channels of communication, and raise the efficiency of the workforce.
- Expand the application of electronic systems in the transport sectors to achieve complete electronic transactions transformation.
- Expand funding sources to establish and maintain the transport facilities.
- Study the unification of the transport sectors in the Kingdom under one umbrella, which will lower the expenses, increase revenues and enhance the efficiency of operation and performance, in addition, to unify the procedures.