AFD – AMUGA – CODATU technical cooperation: Study visit by an Ivorian delegation to Turkey

From 26 November to 1 December, a delegation from AMUGA – Autorité de la Mobilité Urbaine dans le Grand Abidjan visited the Turkish cities of Istanbul and Izmir as part of the technical cooperation agreement signed between AFD – Agence Française de Développement, AMUGA – Autorité de la Mobilité Urbaine dans le Grand Abidjan and CODATU and financed by FEXTE funds.

Team photo in Istanbul, in front of the IETT bus company’s Edirnekapi Garage.

During the week, the AMUGA delegation, which included members of the Studies and Planning Department and the Contractualisation and Operations Monitoring Department, and was accompanied by Mr Etien Christian Kassy, resident mayor of the commune of Marcory (one of the 19 communes of Greater Abidjan), was able to benefit from feedback from the Turkish transport authorities on the following subjects, in response to the current challenges of restructuring the transport network in Greater Abidjan:

• transport network pricing and ticketing aspects (ticketing media, system interoperability, customer journeys, etc.) ;
• the management of major transport infrastructure projects (urban train, tramway and BRT rapid transit bus) and the challenges of operating the Metrobüs system (rapid transit bus);
• processes for facilitating intermodality and the design and management of multimodal interchanges (land and sea transport connections, intersection of heavy metro and HQPT modes);
• the integration of paratransit services (minibuses and shared dolmuş taxis) into the agreed network.

The delegation had the opportunity to meet the Operations Department of IETT, the operator of the Istanbul Bus Rapid Transit (Metrobüs). An organised tour of the network on board a bus then enabled them to observe the layout of the exclusive right-of-way on the traffic lanes and the customer route at stations and strategic interchanges such as Söğütlüçeşme.

Visit of the Metrobüs line station

At a meeting of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality’s Public Transport Directorate, attended by the Planning Directorate, a representative of Metro Istanbul and the ferry company Şehir Hatları A.Ş, the delegation discussed the governance of major transport infrastructure projects, the economic model and the financing of mobility and transport projects.

Visit the Usküdar PEM, at the interface of a metro line, a ferry, a bus line, a minibus line and integration of active modes.

Aspects of ticketing media and system interoperability were discussed during an exchange with ASIS Solutions in Izmir, a city in which the ASIS solution is deployed throughout the transport network, following the example of the SOTRA buses in Abidjan. The rich discussions on ticketing and transport pricing were continued later during a meeting with the municipal company Izmir Teknoloji, in charge of collecting transport revenue and redistributing it to the other municipal companies and manager of the contract with ASIS Solution.

Finally, back in Istanbul, part of the delegation was able to discuss transport and mobility projects financed by AFD with the Head of Infrastructure at the Istanbul agency and representatives of the Transport Division delegation visiting the same week.

Finally, several site visits punctuated the week, including a tour of the network to observe intermodal connections (Marmaray – ferry – tramway – walking) and the design of multimodal interchanges, some of which presented intermodality issues similar to future interchanges in Greater Abidjan (BRT – metro junction, metro – maritime station interface, bus – boat interface, etc.).

Visit to the Alibeykoy MEP, an intermodal station between the tramway and metro lines. Not yet very well integrated into the urban network.

A big thank you to our contacts for their warm welcome and the rich exchanges that their meeting generated with the members of the delegation.