SUMP Türkiye has Carried Out "Planning Sustainable, Future-Oriented and Integrated Public Transport Systems" Training

Within the scope of the "EU Support for Promoting Sustainable Urban Mobility in Turkish Cities" (SUMP Türkiye) Project, co-financed with the EU under the Sectoral Operational Programme  for Transport (USOP) managed by the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure as the Contracting Authority and the Union of Municipalities of Türkiye as the End Beneficiary, the 6^th Physical Training Programme titled “Planning Sustainable, Future-Oriented, and Integrated Public Transport Systems” held on 26–27 March 2025. The 6^th Physical Training was conducted under the moderation of the Project Team Leader, Dr Volkan Recai Çetin, with the participation of 33 representatives from metropolitan municipalities and public institutions.

The two-day training programme featured comprehensive content developed in collaboration with project experts Laura López and László Sándor Kerényi. On the first day, López and Kerényi presented their findings, highlighting the environmental and social benefits of high-quality, integrated public transport systems. Key concepts in transport economics—such as cost structures in planning, regulation and operation processes, financing models, and economic efficiency—were also discussed.

In the first session, López examined the current status of urban mobility systems, the benefits of public transport, and strategies to enhance its attractiveness. Her presentation included examples of externalities related to environmental, spatial, socio-economic, and public health aspects. She also invited participants to identify the most critical externality issues facing their own cities.

In the second session, Kerényi presented under the theme “Planning and Developing High-Quality and Integrated Public Transport Systems: Lessons from Practice, " sharing Budapest’s experiences with shared mobility, multimodal hubs, and Mobility as a Service (MaaS) platform. He provided insights into institutional arrangements such as integrated transport authorities, integrated budgets, strategies, design frameworks, and holistic solutions.

On the second day of training, representatives from 20 metropolitan municipalities were divided into four groups to work on scenario-based exercises centred around the cities of Antalya, Istanbul, Van, and Gaziantep. Each group was tasked with developing a feasibility study and project proposal for a public transport corridor project with a total cost of up to €1 billion, eligible for international grant funding. During these exercises, groups analysed the current conditions of their public transport systems and identified core challenges such as capacity constraints, a lack of multimodal integration, emission levels, and gaps in social inclusion.

Building on these analyses, the groups developed proposals involving various technical configurations, including Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), Light Rail Transit (LRT), and other transit modes, exploring ways to enhance urban accessibility. The corridor alignments, station locations and distributions, vehicle types and quantities, and service frequencies were discussed in detail.

Following this holistic approach, each group presented their proposals to their peers, and the day concluded with collective presentations that reflected both technical outputs and strategic insights. This component of the training allowed municipal representatives to demonstrate their capacity to design city-specific solutions, analyse complex systems, and operationalise sustainability principles. The group work outputs were consolidated during the final evaluation session, forming one of the core learning elements of the programme.