SIEMENS

After bumping Asia briefly with its bow, the ferry turns back into the Bosporus and heads for Europe, which is only about one kilometer away. The vessel is one of a fleet of giant ferries that operate at minute intervals. Even though it’s early in the morning, the shore is already bustling with sesame-ring sellers. On street corners, men in sports coats sit on tiny stools in front of small shops, enjoying a morning cigarette and a glass of tea, which is a must for starting the day in Istanbul. “You have to love this city to tolerate the chaos,” says Serpil Kaya, who is sitting on the deck of one of the ferries and eating a fish sandwich. Kaya, 37, is a sign language teacher who has lived in this city of 13 million for ten years. All those years have made her familiar with the city’s hopelessly clogged streets. “Sometimes I wish I could jump across the roofs like James Bond,” she says. Today, however, she’s relaxing on the sea, her blue silk headscarf blowing with the breeze as she looks out at the silhouette of a city that is almost 3,000 years old and was formerly known as Constantinople.

In contrast, her ferry, which can carry about 1,800 passengers, is state-of-the-art. Siemens equipped the ship with a diesel-electric propulsion system five years ago. As a result, the colossal vessel consumes 20 to 25 percent less fuel than its predecessors. This is important, because with more than 50 million passengers per year on average, the Bosporus ferries are the backbone of Istanbul’s transport infrastructure. “Still, a lot more must be done in order to meet the needs of a city with so many inhabitants,” says Hüseyin Gelis, the CEO of Siemens Turkey.

Traffic in Istanbul is very heavy. About three million vehicles clutter its roads, and an additional 600 join them each day. “The two bridges across the Bosporus are designed to handle 210,000 vehicles per day,” says Gelis, “but more than twice that number cross them. And when I’m stuck in traffic, the beautiful view is no consolation.” Plans therefore call for a third bridge to be built in northern Istanbul to ease the burden on the two existing structures. The project, which is to be completed by 2015, is being carried out on a Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) basis, which involves cooperation between the public and private sectors.

“The BOT model is becoming more and more popular,” Gelis explains. The model is also being used for the biggest infrastructure project in the history of Turkey: the construction of a 420-kilometer stretch of highway between Istanbul and Izmir. One of the key sections of the highway will be the world’s fourth-largest suspension bridge, which is being built in the eastern part of Istanbul and is scheduled for completion in 2015. The bridge, which will be three kilometers long, will link the northern and southern sides of the Gulf of Izmit, thereby reducing travel time from around one hour to just six minutes.

Siemens will be responsible for the traffic control technology on this stretch of highway. “We’re going to be providing the lighting, energy transmission and distribution technology, dehumidification systems, and systems for monitoring the structure’s condition, as well as video surveillance and emergency call systems,” says Barış Saraç, Manager for Complete Transportation at Siemens Turkey. “Process monitoring and control will be handled by our SCADA system – a specialized program that sends all operating and traffic data to a control center.” This will allow operators to obtain an overview of the current situation in real time and respond rapidly to accidents – an extremely helpful feature in an area prone to earthquakes. “That’s why we are also installing seismic sensors at both ends of the bridge. They will monitor the stability of the local infrastructure and quickly transmit data regarding damaged components,” says Saraç.

Deep Tunnels. Around the equivalent of €900 million is being invested in the Eurasia Tunnel, another BOT reference project. Planning began in 2011. The two-story tunnel, which is to be completed over the next five years, will be 5.4 kilometers long and will run directly underneath the Bosporus. About 75,000 cars are expected to drive through it every day after it opens.

Istanbul has already had some initial experience with tunnels. Before construction of the Eurasia Tunnel even commences, trains will begin crossing the Bosporus in 2013 through the Marmaray Tunnel. Of the tunnel’s total length of 13.6 kilometers, 1.4 kilometers runs under the Bosporus. According to the latest plans, this tunnel will transport about 70,000 rail passengers per hour in each direction, with a trip underneath the strait taking four minutes. The tunnel is earthquake-proof, and its depth of 56 meters will make it the deepest tunnel of its kind in the world. In their efforts to find other ways to relieve Istanbul of its chronic traffic, the city’s transportation planners have also extended the city’s first rail line to a total length of 24.9 kilometers. This metro line transported around 75.9 million passengers in 2011. “Siemens installed the control centers and SCADA control systems in that project as well,” says Hakan Saraç from Siemens’ Smart Grid Division. Siemens Rail Systems supplied a radio-based train control system that wirelessly transmits train position data in real time to receiving stations, thereby enabling system operators to increase capacity as needed on heavily traveled routes.

Istanbul’s municipal authorities have set themselves the goal of expanding the length of the urban rail network from its current approximately 150 kilometers to about 640 kilometers by 2016. At that point, according to Istanbul’s Mayor Kadir Topbaş, the number of passengers will have increased from around 1.4 million today to seven million – and this figure is expected to increase to over ten million by 2023. The expansion of the city’s rail networks will require many additional trains. According to the Germany Trade & Invest association, the city will need to add 3,200 streetcar and subway rail vehicles to its current inventory of around 400 over the next 15 years.

Also very popular in Istanbul are the shared taxis known as “dolmuş.” These small buses have no official stops; they simply pick up passengers who hail them. Istanbul has also had metro buses in service since 2007. In 2009 these buses received the Sustainable Transport Award from the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy in Washington D.C. The award is presented to projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve the quality of life in cities. The metro buses are part of a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system that operates on dedicated bus lanes. The system in Istanbul was originally designed to move 400,000 passengers per day, but current statistics indicate that it is transporting 715,000 people every day.

Kaya is familiar with all of the city’s modes of transportation, because she uses at least five of them to weave her way through Istanbul every day. “I take the dolmuş, ferries, commuter trains, aerial trams and, last but not least, the city buses,” she says with a touch of annoyance. At the moment, she is on a bus after having reached the European part of Istanbul by ferry. The city has invested roughly $14.5 billion in its transportation infrastructure since 2004. According to the government, that amounts to over 50 percent of its total budget. Transport planners are now looking to build a 47.8-kilometer-suspension railway. There are also plans to set up a call center for taxi drivers in order to reduce the number of empty taxis on the road. In fact, the latest studies show that around 60 percent of the 18,000 taxis on the streets of Istanbul have no passengers at any given time.

The municipal authorities still have a lot to do in order to achieve their goals. That’s one reason why Kaya’s packed bus is still creeping along congested streets. It sometimes takes her up to two hours to travel the approximately ten kilometers to her destination. It’s a good thing she’s going to her yoga course now. At least she’ll be able to relax before the trip back home.