The producers with production facilities in Turkey have been awarded in recent tenders for the urban rail systems in Turkish cities.
Rail solutions have been more and more invested in rapidly growing cities of Turkey where locally produced rail cars are more and more preferred in tram, light rail and metro systems.
Here are the tenders for urban rail systems finalized in last 2 years and the winners:
Among the above producers, Durmazlar, Hyundai Eurotem, Bozankaya and CNR have facilities in Turkey. Durmazlar, producing chassis, body, interior equipment and software, has the highest local production rate among all.
Wheels, traction, inverters, battery and brake systems of all rail cars are supplied from other countries.
The rail cars with high local production rate can offer better rates compared with many others. The differences were remarkable in some tenders.
There’s another critical advantage of high local production rate: Maintenance and repair costs.
Municipalities using rail system supplied from foreign producers may face with very high maintenance and repair costs. Especially on renewal contracts after the buying-contracts, the costs can increase very sharply. Accidents also end up with very high repair rates.
These high repair and maintenance costs of foreign producers end up with “local production” criteria in new tenders. The last tender for Izmit tram is a good example with this kind of term. Durmazlar was the only company which gave offer.
Rail car producers seem to watch this issue very closely. Durmazlar had important steps in local production. The subsidiary of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, Istanbul Ulasim, has completed production of 18th tram with its own brand. Hyundai Eurotem, which faced with complaints about insufficient local production rate, declared that localization will be more in Izmir trams. CRRC had completed the facility in Ankara last year. Siemens announced a plan for facility in Gebze for rail cars.
Furthermore, mainly organized by TÜBİTAK (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey), there are efforts for developing local electronic and traction systems for rail cars which totally is the biggest portion of cost and critical part of know-how.
Cover Photo: Onur Uysal ©
Categories: Rail Industry
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