TURKEY: Gülermak Heavy Industries has been awarded a contract to build a 13·5 km driverless underground metro line in Izmir, with construction scheduled to begin on February 14.
To be known as the Buca Line, it will serve 11 stations, linking the existing Üçyol metro station in the city centre on the Bornova – Fahrettin Altay light metro line with Tinaztepe Kampüsü, a station that will be built to serve the Tinaztepe campus of Dokuz Eylül university. There will also be an interchange with the İzban suburban rail network at Şirinyer.
In addition to the passenger running tunnels, a further 6 km of access tracks and stabling sidings will be built, primarily to serve the line’s 80 000 m2 maintenance depot.
The Buca Line will be fully automated, and is expected to cut journey times between the campus in Buca and the city centre from 90 min currently by road to just 30 min.
The €652m project is being funded with €490m of external financing from four international development banks, including a loan of €125m from EBRD under its Green City Framework 2 scheme, €125m from French development agency AFD, another €125m from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and €115m from the Black Sea Trade & Development Bank.
