A study on freight transportation handling by the Turkish State Railways and its role within the domestic marketplace

The railway adventure of the Anatolia has begun with the start of the construction of railway line between İzmir and Aydın on 23rd of April, 1856. In the early years of the Republic, railways were held with great importance and was turned into a state policy. Moreover, from 1923 to 1950 approximately 134 km of railway was constructed on a yearly basis and the share of transportation via railways, among those of other modes of transportation, increased up to 68%. After 1950, as a consequence of the post Second World War environment and the Marshall Plan Aids, a transportation policy that concentrated on land roads, was applied, which resulted in constructing approximately only 18 km of railway each year between the years of 1951 and 2003. Due to neglecting other modes of transportation and focusing on land roads, the share of transportation via railways decreased to 4.3%. Our country has significantly made progress in terms of railways especially after 2000's by constructing approximately 138 km of railways each year, which enabled regaining the momentum in the railways in the early years of the Republic. Furthermore, an important part of the railways was renovated and with the opening of high-speed rail lines, the image of the sector has been refreshed. Therefore, efforts are now being exerted towards solving the problems that derived from neglecting the railways for almost fifty years. In this study, the policies the railways in Turkey have gone through throughout the years, as well as the overall structure of Turkish State Railways, its current state in freight transportation and the impact of the reforms implemented in the past fifteen years on the freight transportation have been examined. Afterwards, their variation rates were revealed by conducting analysis with the numerical data collected through literature review on a selected yearly basis. In light of this acquired information, suggestions aiming at increasing the share of transportation via railways have been made.