Passenger transportaion by rail on the rise

Intercity passenger transportation by rail is now on the rise after a sharp decline in 2016.

After losing its 10% intercity passengers last year and getting the worst figures of all 2000s in passenger transportation, TCDD Tasimacilik has managed to compensate almost all of its loss in the first year of liberalization and separation. Ridership in intercity trains grew by 7% in 2017.

This increase mainly comes from high speed trains. The new 6 high speed train sets that started operation last year has increased the capacity of HST fleet which provided a sharp increase in HST ridership. Number of passsengers traveled by HSTs reached to 7.1 mn, which means 20% increase.

Train ridership in Turkey 2000-2017

The fall in ridership in conventional trains has also stopped last year. Conventional trains had a very sharp decline in 2012 due to closure of rail connection of Istanbul. The decline had continued in recent years since TCDD suspended some services.

In 2018, due to the affect of the HST sets that started service within last year, the increase is expected to continue. A faster increase is expected to be seen in 2019, after train services start departing from Haydarpasa and Halkali in Istanbul.