Amman Bus Rapid Transit & Open-Loop Ticketing

🤖 AI-generated summary of the sources below · 🔎 Last verified 2026-08-07

This overview was generated with AI from the public sources listed below and checked against them before publication. It has not had a complete human fact-check — treat it as a starting point and follow the sources.

How this atlas is made · What “last verified” means

Amman's BRT was launched by the Greater Amman Municipality in 2010, halted in 2011 after the House of Representatives and the Audit Bureau questioned its feasibility, and resumed only in 2015 after an outside review — the first two lines opened in 2021 and a third in 2022, at a cost of roughly $250 million, about two-thirds financed by the French development agency AFD. The system is run by GAM's Amman Vision Investment & Development (AVID) on dedicated lanes with Kentkart smart cards and QR app tickets; in February 2023 open-loop Mastercard payments launched with Network International, and Visa signed on weeks later, letting any contactless bank card open the gates — billed as Jordan's first transit payment ecosystem. Monthly ridership reached 2.2 million by October 2023, real change in a car-dominated capital, but still far below the more than 315,000 riders a day the network was designed to carry.

Live 📅 since 2021

Outcome🔄 Ongoing

Evidence🏛️ Official

Run byAmman Vision Investment & Development (AVID), for the Greater Amman Municipality

Scale🏙️ City-wide

Cost≈$250M

Funding≈ two-thirds AFD loan, remainder Government of Jordan / GAM

📊 Impact

Monthly ridership reached 2.2 million by October 2023 (operator-reported), against a design capacity of more than 315,000 riders a day cited at the 2023 payment-system launch — a target, not a measurement.

🎓 Lesson

A decade of political death is survivable: the 2011 feasibility halt cost ten years and the design target remains unredeemed, but the corridor found riders once it opened — and retrofitting open-loop bank-card ticketing took months, not years.

🚲 Mobility Public transport Smart ticketing

Sources

↗ Arab Urban Development Institute — Amman BRT project profile2010 start, 2011 halt over feasibility/funding concerns, 2015 resumption, ~$250M cost with two-thirds AFD financing, 2021/2022 line openings, 315,000 daily design capacity.

↗ Mastercard Newsroom (8 Feb 2023)Launch of Jordan's first transit payment ecosystem with GAM and Network International, covering Amman Bus (135 buses, 27 routes) and the BRT; 315,000-riders/day design figure.

↗ The Fintech Times (4 Apr 2023)Visa MoU with GAM for contactless payments on the BRT; names AVID as operator and Network International plus Kentkart as technology partners.

↗ Wikipedia — Amman Bus Rapid TransitPhased openings (lines 99/100 in 2021, 98 in 2022), 34 stations, monthly ridership of 2.2 million in October 2023, 2010-2015 construction halt after House/Audit Bureau feasibility concerns.

Continue exploring

Compare this project

🇪🇬 Cairo Ring Road Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) · Cairo Two Arab-capital BRTs a decade in the making: Cairo opened electric-first, Amman leads with open-loop bank-card ticketing since 2023. 🇵🇰 Karachi Red Line BRT · Karachi Both BRTs survived long political stalls — Karachi's builder was sacked mid-works, Amman's line was halted 2011-2015 by a feasibility row. 🇯🇴 Amman AI Traffic Camera Network · Amman Another verified project from Amman.

Explore the wider context

🔑 Your Smart City Is Owned by Someone Else 🚌 Public transport guide 🏙️ Amman city profile 🚲 Mobility projects 📖 Bus rapid transit (BRT)📖 E-ticketing 📖 Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS)

📎 Cite this project

1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Amman Bus Rapid Transit & Open-Loop Ticketing” — Amman, Jordan. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/amman-brt-ticketing/ (last verified 2026-08-07). Data: CC BY 4.0.

The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.

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