Turkey's Transport Minister Binali Yıldırım outlined the city's plans to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Evaluation Commission, chaired by Britain's Sir Craig Reedie, and emphasised how much the Government has already spent on upgrading its public transport system.

The centrepiece of the plan is the "five I's" transport strategy, including intelligent transport and traffic management schemes, integrated approaches for systems and plans, interoperable systems to ensure a seamless transport experience, inclusive transport solutions to all Games clients and mmunity to incidents and unforeseen events

"The Games Transport Directorate has been established to take responsibility for the operational planning and delivery of Games transport services," said Yıldırım.

"This transport model leverages Istanbul's existing and planned transport infrastructure .

"Our transport projects will leave a tremendous legacy for Istanbul and will be executed irrespective of whether we are awarded the honour of hosting the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games."

Since Istanbul's last unsuccessful Olympic bid for 2012, which were awarded to London, the Sabiha Gokcen airport transport plan has expanded and two metro line and the metrobus system have been constructed.


More than $3 billion (£2 billion/€.5 billion) has been invested into transport infrastructure under the 2009-2023 Integrated Urban Transport Master Plan, with a $6.8 billion (£4.5 billion/€5.3 billion) investment throughout the next ten years planned for the construction of the Marmary rail tunnel line and the Eurasia Bosphorus road tunnel.

Istanbul 2020's transport plans claims to allow for stations to be less than one kilometre from the venues with 91 per cent of athletes' trips taking less than 30 minutes and an average travel time of 16 minutes.

Istanbul 2020's Games transport strategy will see 12 programmes implemented this year.

These include the building of a third bridge over the Bosphorus, which is due to begin construction in May.

The construction of the third Istanbul bridge was awarded to the Turkish-Italian venture İçtaş-Astaldi construction consortium.

They claim they will complete the construction of the bridge in 36 months at a total cost of $4.5 billion (£3 billion/€3.5 billion).

The bridge is due to be ready by the end of 2015.


"Our aim is to provide an exceptional transport experience for all Games client groups whilst minimising disruption to the city's everyday rhythm," deputy secretary general IMM and head of Games Transport Directorate Muzaffer Hacimustafaoglu said.

"We have therefore developed our Games transport plan to ensure that the two sides of Istanbul continue to run smoothly.

"Significant investments in intelligent traffic management will enhance road capacity and Istanbul's roads will be extended by 12 per cent by 2020.

"We are also investing in shifting from private cars to public transport.

"Trips via rail, which currently represent 19 percent of all public transport, will increase to more than 50 per cent."

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