TURKEY: Plans have been announced for the construction of a 37·7 km Bat-Ray light rail network in the city of Batman.
There would be a cross-city line intersecting with an orbital line, with the network to be developed in four stages. It would use catenary-free bi-directional electric vehicles, and would be integrated with other modes of transport.
| Batman Bat-Ray light rail project | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stage | Route | Length km | Stops | Predicted daily ridership |
| 1 | Balpınar – Güvercinlik | 9·75 | 12 | 16 500 |
| 2 | Güvercinlik – Yeni Devlet Hastanesi | 16·85 | 11 | 27 500 |
| 3 | Güvercinlik – TPAO Bulvarı | 6·28 | 2 | 4 000 |
| 4 | TPAO Bulvarı – Yeni Devlet Hastanesi | 4·82 | 5 | 8 500 |
Announcing the project in September, Governor Ekrem Canalp said the proposed network is needed to meet the travel demand arising from the city’s rapidly growing population. He said Batman is becoming a major city, and the project is taking a 100-year view.
‘Each new project means laying the stones of the road one by one’, he said. ‘Today, we are putting a very important and essential stone of this road in place.’
