Air

 

Medina is served by the Prince Mohammad bin Abdulaziz International Airport located off Highway 340. It handles domestic flights, while it has scheduled international services to regional destinations in the Middle East. It is the fourth-busiest airport in Saudi Arabia, handling 8,144,790 passengers in 2018. The airport project was announced as the world’s best by Engineering News-Record’s 3rd Annual Global Best Projects Competition held on 10 September 2015.  The airport also received the first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certificate in the MENA region. The airport receives higher numbers of passengers during the Hajj.

Roads

In 2015, the MMDA announced Darb as-Sunnah (Sunnah Path) Project, which aims to develop and transform the 3 km (1.9 mi) Quba’a Road connecting the Quba’a Mosque to the al-Masjid an-Nabawi to an avenue, paving the whole road for pedestrians and providing service facilities to the visitors. The project also aims to revive the Sunnah where Muhammed used to walk from his house (al-Masjid an-Nabawi) to Quba’a every Saturday afternoon.

The city of Medina lies at the junction of two of the most important Saudi highways, Highway 60 and Highway 15. Highway 15 connects Medina to Mecca in the south and onward and Tabuk and Jordan in the north. Highway 60 connects the city with Yanbu, a port city on the Red Sea in the west and Al Qassim in the east. The city is served by three ring roads: King Faisal Road, a 5 km ring road that surrounds Al-Masjid an-Nabawi and the downtown area, King Abdullah Road, a 27 km road that surrounds most of urban Medina and King Khalid Road is the biggest ring road that surrounds the whole city and some rural areas with 60 km of roads.

Bus and rapid transit

 Haramain high-speed railway station at Medina
 

The bus transport system in Medina was established in 2012 by the MMDA and is operated by SAPTCO. The newly established bus system includes 10 lines connecting different regions of the city to Masjid an-Nabawi and the downtown area, and serves around 20,000 passengers on a daily basis. In 2017, the MMDA launched the Madinah Sightseeing Bus service. Open top buses take passengers on sightseeing trips throughout the day with two lines and 11 destinations, including Masjid an-Nabawi, Quba’a Mosque and Masjid al-Qiblatayn and offers audio tour guidance with 8 different languages. By the end of 2019, the MMDA announced its plan to expand the bus network with 15 BRT lines. The project was set to be done in 2023.  In 2015, the MMDA announced a three-line metro project in extension to the public transportation master plan in Medina.

Rail

 

The historic Ottoman railways were shut down and the railway stations, including the one in Medina, were converted into museums by the Saudi government. The Haramain High Speed Railway (HHR) came into operation in 2018, linking Medina and Mecca, and passes through three stations: Jeddah, King Abdul Aziz International Airport, and King Abdullah Economic City. It runs along 444 kilometers (276 miles) with a speed of 300 km/h, and has an annual capacity of 60 million passengers.