In transport terms, the Caribbean island nation of Cuba is unique because for the past forty years it has been subjected to an economic blockade by its erstwhile dominant trading partner, the United States. Furthermore, this economic pressure was exacerbated in the early 1990s with the political and economic collapse of the Former Soviet Union, and the Eastern European Socialist countries which had replaced the United States as Cuba’s principal trading partners. These events have led to a transformation in how goods and people are moved, not least because of a huge reduction in the amount of hard currency available to pay for fuel, vehicles and spare parts. This resulted in a number of innovative behavioural and technological outcomes.
In short, the impact of the post-Soviet State of Emergency on travel patterns in Cuba meant that Cuban imports as a whole fell by 75%, from 8.1bn Cuban Pesos in 1989 to 2.0bn Cuban Pesos in 1993, while over the same period in the transport sector, fuel (i.e. oil) imports were cut by 76%, and imports of transport equipment fell by 86%
