The impacts of 2020 in railway transportation come into view one after the other.

Minister of Transport, Mr Karaismailoglu, mentioned in a speech that total passengers travelled on HSTs has reached to 56.1 mn by the end of 2020. 53.16 mn passengers travelled on HSTs as of end of 2019. Thus, this year’s ridership seems to be slightly less than 3 million.

Covid-19 had also affected train transportation deeply in 2020. By the end of February, international trains to Iran were suspended. In late March, all passenger trains suspended due to pandemic. In May, HSTs restarted service, but with less number of departures and limited seat capacity.

These all had badly affected the HSTs which used to run with almost 100% capacity before pandemic. Annual ridership was over 8 million, which might even increased with new sets delivered in 2020, but realized as 3 million. The change in ridership of HSTs by year is as below:

The decrease in other passenger trains is expected even more. All international, main line and regional trains were suspended in late March and had not run again in 2020. 17.7 million passengers used this trains in 2019.

Cover photo: TCDD Taşımacılık ©