Turkey's first automated urban subway system started operating in Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city on December 15th 2017. President Erdogan and Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım participated in the inauguration ceremony and opened the first stop of Üsküdar-Sancaktepe subway line on Asian side of the mega town.
Istanbul with over 20 million inhabitants has had a serious problem of public transportation for ages. The Metropolitan Municipality has spent a lot of effort and incredible amount of funds to improve the situation and bring travelling facilities in the town to an acceptable level. Within this framework, several investments in underground infrastructure have been realized by the municipality. Üsküdar-Sancaktepe route is among such projects.
The President and PM along with other officials were on the first metro service from Üsküdar to Ümraniye. Currently, 10.5 kilometers of 20 km line is put into service and the remaining part of the project is scheduled to be accomplished by June 2018.The full project is reported to consist of 16 stations and when fully functional it will carry 700,000 passengers a day.
On the other hand the line will connect two large mass transport lines; Metrobus highway and Marmaray subway – connecting two different parts of the city in Asia and Europe.
