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Sarajevo — 72% say the tram doesn't reach them equally, and 18% over 45 still won't cross Vrbanja bridge

Jasmin Ademović's University of Sarajevo study surveyed 150 residents and did about 40 interviews. The quantitative finding: three in four Sarajevans say the transport network is inequitably distributed. The qualitative finding is what stays with you — some Sarajevans, thirty years after the siege, still route around the streets and bridges where certain things happened. The Vogošća trolleybus return in 2024 read to those residents as reintegration.

By Nedim Hadzimahmutovic · Sarajevo

The site’s earlier transport posts, the Vogošća trolleybus return, the airport-to-city routing, the Stadler-tram investment, give you what you need as a visitor.

Jasmin Ademović’s 2025 University of Sarajevo study is the sociological reading of the same infrastructure. His finding is not surprising as a summary sentence: the network still carries siege residue. His finding is heavier as a number: 72% of Sarajevans say the transport network is inequitably distributed, and 18% of residents over 45 still route around siege-era locations.

What Ademović measured

Ademović used a mixed-methods design:

  • Survey of 150 residents, stratified across the municipal boundaries of Novi Grad, Novo Sarajevo, Centar, Stari Grad, plus the outer municipalities of Vogošća, Ilidža, Hadžići, Trnovo, and Ilijaš.
  • Semi-structured interviews with about 40 residents, oversampled from Vogošća, Dobrinja, and Nedžarići.
  • Participatory mapping: asking respondents to draw their daily transport routes and highlight perceived barriers.

Fieldwork ran between March and October 2024, after the Vogošća trolleybus had returned.

The 72%

72% of respondents disagreed with the statement “Public transport in Sarajevo is equitably accessible across all municipalities of the Canton.” Only 11% agreed.

The perceived-inequity pattern, from pp. 15–17:

  • Central municipalities (Centar, Stari Grad): ~60% report satisfactory service. Trams every 3–5 minutes, buses every 10–15, extensive coverage.
  • Novi Grad, Novo Sarajevo, Ilidža: ~40% report satisfactory service. Adequate coverage but off-peak frequencies drop to every 15–20 minutes.
  • Vogošća, Hadžići, Trnovo, Ilijaš: ~15% report satisfactory service. Lines terminate at municipal borders. Transfers with 20–30 minute waits.

The quantitative finding isn’t new. Earlier post-conflict transport studies from 2010 and 2018 produced similar numbers. What’s new in Ademović’s study is the qualitative reading of why the pattern persists.

The jurisdictional gap

Ademović’s structural argument: Sarajevo Canton’s public transport still operates across a patchwork of jurisdictional boundaries that pre-war Yugoslav planning didn’t treat as barriers.

Federation-Republika Srpska boundary. Runs through the eastern edge of the Sarajevo Canton, immediately east of Dobrinja. Public transport lines don’t cross it. East Sarajevo neighbourhoods (Lukavica, Istočno Novo Sarajevo, Istočna Ilidža), part of the pre-war unified city, aren’t served by Federation-canton transport.

Municipal boundaries within the Federation Canton. The tram network, the main high-capacity infrastructure, terminates at Ilidža (west) and Baščaršija (east) and doesn’t cross into the outer municipalities.

Outer municipality connections. Vogošća, Hadžići, Trnovo, Ilijaš, each has a small number of radial bus lines back to the central municipalities but limited transverse connections between them.

The effect, from Ademović’s interviews: outer-municipality residents perceive themselves as “forgotten on an island”, the phrasing from one Vogošća interviewee on p. 22.

The mental map

The qualitative finding. Some Sarajevans (specifically those who lived in the city during the siege, over about 45) carry mental maps that avoid the routes crossing former frontlines.

The example Ademović cites on p. 25: a Grbavica resident described her daily routing as “I always take the tram to Marijin Dvor, then walk to Centar, even though the direct bus route is faster. I do not use the bus because the direct route crosses Vrbanja bridge, and I still cannot cross Vrbanja bridge without remembering.”

Vrbanja bridge is where the siege formally began on 5 April 1992. The first two siege casualties, Suada Dilberović and Olga Sučić, were shot on that bridge.

Thirty years on, the physical infrastructure is fully operational and publicly available. The psychological routing of the older cohort still carries the residue of the violence that happened at those locations.

About 18% of respondents over 45 self-report route-avoidance behaviour tied to siege-era locations. Ademović pp. 27–28.

The reintegration signals

The counter-signals are the recent infrastructure investments Ademović reads as symbolic-reintegration acts.

The Vogošća trolleybus. Returned in mid-2024 after 28 years off the map. Line 103 re-established the pre-war connection between Vogošća (a Federation outer municipality) and the central transit hub at Trg Austrije. Vogošća residents received it as symbolic civic reintegration, a confirmation that the outer municipality was still part of the unified Sarajevo transit system.

The Stadler tram order. 25 new Stadler Tango NF3 trams delivered 2023–2024, replacing the ageing Yugoslav-era Konchar and Tatra stock that had been in service for about 40 years. Read, to Sarajevan users, as a commitment to the future of the tram network.

The Ilidža–Hrasnica extension. Under construction as of Ademović’s 2024 field data. About 6 km of new tram line connecting Hrasnica to the Ilidža stop. Current site coverage has completion softened away from the earlier “late 2026” projection.

Why this matters

Most contemporary Sarajevo transport commentary treats the network as a technical-infrastructure problem, line frequency, fares, vehicle age, coverage. Ademović treats it as a layered problem in which the technical geography carries residue of the 1992–1996 conflict and the ongoing Dayton-era jurisdictional division.

Both readings are correct. Ademović’s contribution is to make the residue visible.

What to do with this

If you take the tram from the airport side to Baščaršija, notice that the line runs west-east through Federation-Canton territory only. It does not cross into the RS-side East Sarajevo territory east of Dobrinja.

If you ride the new Vogošća trolleybus (line 103) out to the outer municipality, you’re participating in one of the reintegration acts Ademović catalogues.

If you want to read the study, it’s in Sarajevski žurnal za društvena pitanja Vol. 14, No. 1-2 (2025). Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Sarajevo. Physical copies in the University Library.

Sources

  • Jasmin Ademović, Public Transport and Spatial Inequality in Post-Conflict Sarajevo, in Sarajevski žurnal za društvena pitanja Vol. 14, No. 1-2 (2025), pp. 9–32.
  • GRAS Sarajevo — public transit operator, 2024 network map and route data.
  • Kanton Sarajevo Statistical Yearbook 2023.

Sources & further reading

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