High speed trains carry 72m passengers since its inception
With the high-speed trains (HST) that Turkiye met 14 years ago, nearly 72 m passengers have been transported so far. A total of 71.7m passengers traveled of which 19.8m on the Ankara-Eski ehir HST line, 18.2m on the Ankara-Konya line, 23.8m on the Ankara-Istanbul line, 8.3m on the Konya-Istanbul line, 847,000 on Ankara-Karaman line, 568,000 on IstanbulKaraman line, and 145,000 on the Eski ehir-Istanbul route.
In the written statement made by the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, it was reminded that the first High-Speed Train Line was put into service on 13 March 2009 by the then Prime Minister, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
"Our country has thus become the 8th HST operator in the world and the 6th in Europe. The AnkaraKonya line became operational in 2011, and Konya-Istanbul and
Ankara-Istanbul became operational in 2014. The length of the HST line increased to 1241 kilometers. With the commissioning of the Konya-Karaman high-speed train line with a length of 219 kilometers in 2022, which is carried out directly with HST + bus, HST + conventional train connection, has been provided to 33 percent of the population of 8 cities and the country. Along with transportation, 47 percent of the country's population is provided with HST service,” the statement noted.
It was pointed out that the travel time between Ankara-Eskishehir with HSTs decreased from 4 hours to 1 hour 30 minutes, the travel time between Ankara-Istanbul decreased from 8 hours to 4.5 hours, and the travel time between Ankara-Konya to 1 hour 45 minutes, and the travel time between Konya-Istanbul to 4.5 hours.
The statement reminded that express high-speed train services started on the Ankara-Istanbul line on July 10, 2021, and the express train stopped only in Eskişehir and Istanbul-Pendik.
Emphasizing that there are 56 daily flights between Ankara-Istanbul, Ankara-Konya, Ankara-Eski ş ehir and Istanbul-Konya, Eskişehir-Istanbul, Istanbul-Karaman, AnkaraKaraman, the following was noted:
"In addition to the cities they reach directly, HSTs significantly reduce the travel time to Kutahya, Tavshanlı, Afyonkarahisar, Denizli, Karaman, Antalya, and Alanya with combined transportation where HSTs and conventional train and HST and bus are planned together while providing more comfort for our city than the comfort of advanced railway technology. We are working to build Turkiye with highspeed train lines. High-speed train works continue between Ankaraİzmir. With the completion of the project, the distance between the two cities will be 624 kilometers and the travel time will be reduced to 3 hours and 30 minutes. In addition, Mersin-Osmaniye-AdanaGaziantep, which is under construction, will be reduced to 624 kilometers. The Gaziantep railway line is planned to be completed by end of 2024. With the completion of this line, a citizen who takes the high-speed train from Istanbul or Edirne will be able to reach Gaziantep without interruption. The Ankara-Sivas line will also be put into service in the coming days,” the statement noted.