Eight of the sixty-eight planned Driverless Metro trains have been put on the rails in Istanbul," Metropolitan Mayor Kadir Topbas said on Saturday.
All eight new trains have started operating on the 23,5-kilometer M2 Yenikapı – Hacıosman metro line, which serves around 350 passengers per day.
It is planned that the remaining 60 trains will start operating by the end of the year, the three-minute downtime will be reduced to two minutes, and the metro's carrying capacity will show a 30% increase, transporting up to 450 thousand passengers daily.
Speaking at a ceremony held at Seyrantepe Metro Station, Mayor Kadir Topbas said the 68 trains would be added to the existing 92 trains in the Istanbul Metro. He stressed that 42% of the trains in the metro were locally produced, adding that plans to launch them had been in the works for a long time.
"The cost of the state-of-the-art metro trains, which are also equipped with sound and vibration insulation to ensure a comfortable journey for passengers, was around 77,5 million euros," the mayor said.
The development of public transportation in Istanbul continues as tenders for the construction of two new metro lines were announced in 2015. With the population of the Turkish metropolis amounting to 14 million and projections showing that the population will continue to grow until the end of the decade, reaching 16,4 million, the city’s transportation network needs to be constantly expanded, using all its capabilities. As a result, the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality has started the construction of two new metro lines. The tender was taken for the metro line between Ataköy-İKİTELLİ on the European side and Dudullu-Bostancı on the Asian side.
