Egypt has inaugurated the East Nile route of the Cairo Monorail, Africa’s first fully driverless monorail system, on May 6, 2026. The 56.5-kilometer line connects Cairo’s Nasr City International Stadium area with the new administrative capital being built in the desert to ease congestion in the capital. A second 43.8-kilometer West Nile route is under construction to link 6th of October City with Giza. Once both routes are operational, the network will exceed 100 kilometers, surpassing China’s Chongqing Monorail as the world’s longest.

The Cairo Monorail project, valued at about 2.3 billion pounds, was launched in 2019 to expand the city’s transport capacity beyond its three metro lines, which already carry around 500 million passengers annually. The system, built and operated by a consortium led by French rail manufacturer Alstom, includes 68 trains made up of 272 coaches built in Derby, England. Each train can carry up to 45,000 passengers per hour in each direction at speeds of up to 80 kilometers per hour.

Alstom describes the monorail as environmentally friendly, with low noise levels and the ability to recover up to 99 percent of braking energy, reducing fuel use. The Egyptian government expects the new capital to eventually house 6.5 million people and create 2 million jobs.