Rail solutions started to get considerable shares from public transport in metropol cities of Turkey.
Mayorships allocate great budgets for rail solutions, and try to increase the share of rail in city.
But do we know how succesful they are? Are routes correct? Do prefered systems (metro, tram, suburban) hit target? Do citizens change their habits and prefer rail? Are these investments efficient?
A simple method to measure this efficiency is to compare the rail network length with ridership.
With this method, Istanbul is on the top of list, far above the others. 4 million passengers/km travelled by rail last year. Partially opened Bosphorus Tunnel (Marmaray) is carrying even more with 4.6 million passengers/km.
Bursa is second in this list. 1.7 million passengers/km travelled by rail. Ridership and network of tram is not included in this, since statistics are not being published.
1.5 million passengers/km travelled last yer in Izmir, which makes the city third on the list. 20-km-long Izmir metro system is carrying over 100 million passengers (5 mn passengers/km).
Here is the efficiency list of rail systems for all cities in Turkey:
Two cities, which are close bottom of the list, Kayseri and Samsun, may increase their efficiency by recent investments of new cars and routes.
The city at the bottom, Antalya’s new tram line (Expo line) has not been able to attract the citizens much yet.
Cover Photo: Onur Uysal ©
Categories: Urban Transport
Rail Turkey En 