The stations gleam. Metallic criss-cross beams frame the platforms in a style that resembles Dubai or Singapore more than the Cairo one steps out of at street level, and the concourses are kept polished to a shine that Cairo's decades-old metro can only recall from its opening year in 1987.
The trains, driverless and air-conditioned, glide in on precast concrete beams every six to eight minutes. Three months after the East Nile Monorail's first commercial passengers stepped aboard, Egypt's most futuristic piece of transport infrastructure is running exactly as its French manufacturer promised.
The 56.5-kilometre line, Africa's first monorail, was inaugurated by President Abdel Fattah El Sisi on March 20 and opened its first phase, comprising 16 stations, to the public on May 6, running from Al-Moshir Tantawi station in New Cairo to Justice City station in the New Administrative Capital.
A second phase of six additional stations, extending the line from El Mosheer Tantawi to Cairo Stadium in Nasr City, opened in late June, connecting the New Administrative Capital directly to the existing metro network via Metro Line 3.
When the trains are eventually spaced 90 seconds apart, capacity will reach 45,000 passengers an hour in each direction. Officials speak of 500,000 to 600,000 riders a day once the West Nile line linking Giza to 6 October City comes online next year.
The reality this summer is quieter. On a ride on Thursday afternoon, there were between 30 and 50 people across the train's four cars – encouraging for a service in its infancy, but a long way from the government’s projections.
The monorail cars themselves are noticeably smaller than those of the Metro, and will therefore carry a fraction of the passengers per trip that a metro carriage does. From above, the line offers scenic passage across New Republic Egypt: sprawling villas, gated compounds, suburban low-rises that seem to belong to a different country than the majority of Egypt.
An expensive journey
Tickets are structured across four zones, and all single fares are one-way. A one-zone trip of up to five stations costs 20 Egyptian pounds ($40 cents); a two-zone trip of up to 10 stations costs EGP 40; three zones up to 15 stations costs 55; the full 22-station journey costs 80.
A single-station trip in one direction still costs the full EGP 20, and the ticket cannot be reused for the return leg.
Monorail monthly passes range up to LE2,400 for 60 trips on the full line, with a 50 per cent discount for seniors and people with disabilities.
By comparison, a Cairo Metro ticket costs a flat EGP 20 for journeys of more than 23 stops. On a per-kilometre basis, the monorail costs roughly three times as much: a full 56.5-kilometre monorail run costs EGP 80, or 1.42 per kilometre, against 0.49 per kilometre for a full 41-kilometre run of Metro Line 3, the network's longest line.
Maha, 34, was riding from Point 90 station near her home in New Cairo to a yoga class three stations away. "I take it four times a week for various errands," she told The National, "I have come to find it quite relaxing actually. And if I am coming home late, it feels a lot safer than taking an Uber, honestly."
Gomaa, 52, was on his way to the Masa Hotel station, from where he intended to switch to the Light Rail Transit for the journey home to Badr City. Clad in a traditional galabeya, he said the trip was not one he made often, but he was meeting someone about a prospective job in New Cairo that day.
He is precisely the kind of passenger the government had in mind when it first pitched the monorail to the nation: a resident of the newer eastern communities using the eastern rail spine to get to work.
However, on Thursday, he was also the exception on a service that skews wealthier than most Egyptian public transport.
An ambitious project
The monorail cost more than $4.5 billion, part of a debt-funded infrastructure push that has drawn warnings from economists about the strain on state finances.
French company Alstom, which inherited the contract from when it took over the Canadian company Bombardier in 2021, leads the consortium alongside Orascom Construction and the Arab Contractors, and will run operations and maintenance for 30 years. The 68 four-car trainsets were built at the Bombardier-turned-Alstom plant in Derby, England, and financed in part by loans guaranteed by UK Export Finance.
Critics have argued the money would have been better spent expanding the Metro network, which spans 106 kilometres and 84 stations across three lines linking central Cairo to Helwan, Shubra El-Kheima, Giza, Heliopolis and the airport, and already carries some 4.5 million riders a day at a fraction of the fare.
Urban planners have questioned whether Cairo, a city of 26 million where most commuters ride buses, microbuses or the Metro, is the right host for a technology more usually deployed at airports and theme parks.
The monorail is doing what it was built to do: moving passengers reliably between the eastern suburbs and the government's new capital in the desert. What it does for the other Cairo, the older, denser city below the concrete beams, where most of the country's 26 million Greater Cairenes live and travel, is a question for the years ahead, not the first months.
