EMBARQ's BRT Activities in Turkey Gain Momentum

BRT expert Dario Hidalgo visits Istanbul and evaluates the city's successful new Metrobüs system

Tuesday, March 25, 2008 | Istanbul, Turkey

Last week, EMBARQ Istanbul Project Director, Sibel Koyluoglu, and EMBARQ Senior Transport Engineer, Dario Hidalgo, conducted an evaluation of Metrobüs - Istanbul’s first Bus Rapid Transit corridor.  The new corridor runs between Avcılar, a suburb of Istanbul, and Topkapı Palace, located in the city’s historic peninsula. On March 25, Koyluoglu and Hidalgo's evaluation was presented to local authorities, including a senior advisor to the Mayor on Transportation Issues, Professor Mustafa Ilıcalı, and to Mehmet Öztürk'le, the General Director of İETT, Istanbul’s Transit Agency.

Metrobüs, which the city of Istanbul built after being introduced to the concept of BRT by EMBARQ in 2004, can be considered a success.  Some of the key statistics of the new system include:

• 18.3 km in length
• 14 stations
• 40 Kilometer per hour commercial speeds
• 245,000 passengers per day
• 17,280 passengers per hour per direction during peak hours.

With these figures, the fist corridor of Metrobüs Istanbul is one of the most effective BRT lines in the world. Nevertheless, EMBARQ experts identified several issues affecting system operations: pedestrian accessibility is low, buses do not dock at the stations, the terminal at Avcilar, the Campus of Istanbul University, has not yet been completed, and the system exhibits operational problems, namely "bunching". Fortunately, these issues can all be dealt with, and the municipal government has asked EMBARQ to present proposals on how to make improvements in these areas. Input by EMBARQ will also be considered in the current and planned expansions of Metrobüs, which when completed will include six BRT corridors and a network of BRT bus lanes totaling 120 km.

Read EMBARQ's evaluation of Metrobus

Learn more about EMBARQ's work in Istanbul