The tender of TCDD for 10 new high speed train sets was cancelled last month.

The tender was the first step of procurement of 106 high speed trains till 2021. The tender was announced in May 2014, 3 companies, Siemens, Alstom and Bombardier, were interested in tender, only Alstom and Siemens gave offers and Siemens was chosen at the end.

First Alstom’s offer rejected by TCDD due to missing documents, and Simens’s offer was rejected by Public Tender Committee due to a missing certificate.

TCDD was planning to get all sets within 15 months. This cancellation will probably cause postponing of extension plans of high speed tran services in Turkey.

Currently, TCDD has 12 HST sets in fleet and 10 of them are active. One set, Velaro, will soon start service as 11th after tests are completed.

TCDD is organizing 40 daily high speed train services every day between Ankara-Istanbul, Ankara-Konya, Ankara-Eskisehir and Konya-Eskisehir. Although occupation rates are very high, the service cannot be extended since all active sets are being used almost continiously during day. The turnrounds (stoppage time before next service) are very short for using maximum capacity which ends up with little tolerance for any delay. Thus, TCDD is giving high priority to this service and spending extra-ordinary effort for solving any problem on way.

The new sets are not only needed to increase the number of departures on current routes, but also a new route on existing network is expected to open: Istanbul-Konya.

There are also new lines under construction to be completed by 2017: Ankara-Sivas, Eskisehir-Izmir and Osmaneli-Bursa. New sets will also be needed for those lines.

The only contract about new high speed train sets is the one with Siemens. Siemens has a contract of 7 high speed train sets, one of which has already delivered to Turkey.

Based on the last cancelled tender, opening of new tender and production of sets will take about 2 years. Thus, a new tender, maybe for even more sets, must expect to be announced soon.