Economic viability and environmental impact analyse of Malatya province's tolleybus lines

In parallel with the population growth in the city centers and the decrease in energy resources, mass transport becomes more important and it is of great importance that technical and economical feasibility studies are carried out carefully before the transportation investments are implemented. Although its high initial investment cost, trolleybuses are feasible in the long term by using electric energy instead of diesel fuel, and they provide great savings in energy costs and are environmentally friendly due to the fact that the CO2 emission value is close to zero at city centers. As of 2015, Malatya Metropolitan Municipality has taken trolleybuses into operation providing transportation services on a total line length of 36 km between Bus Terminal-İnönü University. Trolleybuses service on the ring road between Bus Terminal and İnönü University with inter-stop transportation at the city center. Most of the passengers using the trolleybus line are university students or those who want to go to Inonu University Turgut Ozal Medical Center Training and Research Hospital. The population density around Fahri Kayahan Boulevard and Bostanbaşı Boulevard located at the western part of Malatya province increases faster than the city center. Moreover, due to the rapid economic growth of the province, the number of firms and employees in the Organized Industrial Zones increases. In the following years, this situation brings to the agenda the research on the feasibility of adding different lines to the existing trolleybus line. In this study, construction of trolleybus line and purchase of trolleybus cost items are taken as the initial investment costs, and electricity consumption, maintenance costs and personnel salaries are determined as the operation costs, while revenues from ticket sales are considered as income. The feasibility of the seven trolleybus lines planned to be added to the existing trolleybus line is analyzed by computing the net present value of the cash flow formed by the income and expense items. In this study, it is concluded that six of the seven of the planned lines are economically feasible with twenty five years of service life. This study aims to increase the economic efficiency of trolleybus investments which requires high initial investment cost and to make public investments more efficient with the proposed economic analysis method. In addition to the economical applicability questionnaire, it is also aimed to compare the emission values that may be caused by the trambuses with the emission values that may be caused by the diesel bellows buses. KEYWORDS: Urban mass transportation, feasibility analysis, net present value analysis