IN SHORT: President Sisi inaugurated Africa’s longest monorail on March 20, a 56.5km fully driverless line connecting Cairo to the New Administrative Capital. Built by Orascom, Arab Contractors, and France’s Alstom at a cost of approximately $4 billion, it is Egypt’s first monorail and designed to carry 500,000 passengers per day. It opened four years late.
President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi inaugurated the East Nile Monorail on March 20, 2026, during Eid al-Fitr celebrations, opening Africa’s longest monorail line and Egypt’s first: a 56.5-kilometre fully driverless elevated railway connecting Cairo Stadium in Nasr City to the control centre of the New Administrative Capital. It is designed to carry 500,000 passengers per day, created approximately 15,000 direct and 10,000 indirect jobs, and is the first phase of a 100-kilometre two-line system that will become the world’s longest driverless monorail network when complete.
The line runs from Cairo Stadium in Nasr City eastward through Nasr City, New Cairo and the Fifth Settlement, terminating at the operations hub in the New Administrative Capital. Its 22 stations serve Cairo International Stadium, Al-Azhar University, two major hospitals, and the government district, financial and business district, and residential communities in the New Capital. The route integrates with Cairo Metro Line 3 at Cairo Stadium station, creating the city’s first intermodal connection between metro and monorail.
The system operates 40 trains, each composed of four carriages, running at speeds up to 80 kilometres per hour. End-to-end journey time is approximately 70 minutes. Trains are fully automated at Grade of Automation 4 and run on rubber tyres, consuming 30 percent less energy than conventional electric rail. The project was developed by a consortium of Orascom Construction, Arab Contractors, and France’s Alstom, which supplied 70 Innovia 300 trains. Total project cost is approximately $4 billion. Construction began in 2019. The original completion target was May 2022.
The East Nile line is one of two planned. The West Nile line will run 42 kilometres from 6th October City to Giza with 13 stations. Together the two lines will cover approximately 100 kilometres with 35 stations, making the completed Cairo Monorail system the world’s longest driverless monorail network, surpassing Osaka.
Bigger Picture: The East Nile Monorail is the infrastructure spine of a bet Egypt has been making for a decade: that relocating the capital eastward will decentralise Cairo’s 22-million-person population and signal to global investors that Egypt can execute at scale. Without mass transit connecting the New Capital to the city it complements, the government district and business hubs remain an expensive inconvenience. With it, commuters in Nasr City can reach the financial district in 70 minutes without a car. Whether that is enough to make the New Capital the economic hub its designers intended is still an open question. What is not in question is the engineering achievement: Africa has its longest monorail and Egypt has its first driverless rail system.
Source: SIS Egypt / Al-Ahram / Egypt Today
