Kayseri is a Turkish city located in Central Anatolia with a population of 1.3 million citizens. It is one of Turkey’s most developed cities with over 1,000 industrial production centres stretching along eight industrial areas. It is the largest Free Trade Area in Turkey generating a production of USD 5 Billion and exports worth USD 1.2 Billion, mainly from the textile industry.
As any large urban agglomeration, Kayseri has been confronted with transport-related problems and the congestion they cause.
Feyzullah Gundogdu, Fixed Installation Manager of Kayseri Ulasim (the transport authority in Kayseri), present at the Railway Days Summit, talked about the problems the transport system in this city is facing, but also about the best solution for improving and even reducing these problems.
“Transport is one of the main problems of a city and transport planning requires a lot of funding and seems never to end. Moreover, the challenges of urban transport affect the city’s characteristics”, said Feyzullah Gundogdu.
The best long-term solution for solving the problems generated by extremely intense road traffic is public rail transport.
Kayseri has chosen to develop a light rail transport systems which has perfectly integrated into the architecture of the city at the bottom of the Erciyes Mountain. Kayseray, as the light rail transport system is called in Turkish, is perfectly integrated with the buses travelling in the city. In parallel, Kayseri Ulaşım has developed a bike sharing programme which perfectly complements the light rail system. Thus, 15% of the people who use the bike have also used public transport. 1,500 bikes are used every day in combination with the light rail.
The authorities have implemented a single charging system which provides a single ticket for buses, light rail and bicycle, but also for tourists.
It is interesting how the authorities chose to promote this transport system: if the passenger uses the light rail less than half an hour, the journey is free, and then they pay 0.5 Turkish liras for every 30 minutes, less than 0.2 euro cents.
The construction of this system began in 2006 and in 2009 the light rail was put in operation. Phases II and III of the project were tendered in 2011 resulting in the extension of the route by 10 km and 7 km respectively.
A large section of the light rail route is with grass, with over 116,000 m2 of grass; moreover, 10,000 trees and 200,000 plants and flowers have been planted along the route.
“The light rail transport system has increased the number of public transport users; in fact, 30% of passengers have the alternative of their personal vehicles, but prefer to use public transport means”, added Feyzullah Gundogdu.
Land use along the light rail system has significantly increased since the operation of the line. New residential areas have been built and three shopping centres have been opened and the cost of the lands along the light rail route has increased by 30%.
A new sports stadium has also been built close to the light rail route and the money from the sale of the land where the old stadium used to be has been used to finance other projects. In addition, new bus stations have been built and their route is organised so as to complement light rail transport; the land of the old stations has been sold and the money has been used for other projects. The tax collection system has been outsourced to a private company generating reduction of EUR 2 Million annually.
Needless to add the benefits of an integrated and customer-oriented transport system!
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