Freight transportation characterization on Turkish railway network according to the type of load

General Directorate of State Railways of the Republic of Turkey (T.C.D.D.) conducts the intercity freight transport by implementing the organization, including loading and unloading operations, from the acceptance of loads and luggage coach to the delivery of the goods, from forming the train to train services, through the Directorate of Freight Department and seven different Regions.Additionally T.C.D.D. classifies the goods in 11 main groups as agricultural products and live animals, foodstuff and fodder, solid fuels, petroleum products, ores, metallurgical products, construction material, fertilizers, chemical substances, equipment-machinery and other goods transported.In this study, the freight data evaluated between 2002 and 2009 were gathered from 1,424 railway stations existing and operating within the Turkish Railway Network. The freight information in the database, were combined and arranged into a single file on daily, including weekends, week days, entire week, monthly, seasonal and annual basis together with freight data(type, tonnage, kilometre transported, price applied), number of train services, and unit transportation measures such as ton-km, price/ton, km/ton, ton/km, price/km, price/train service etc.In this study, the characteristics of transportation units according to 11 different type of goods in annual, seasonal, monthly, weekly and daily timeframes were estimated for all railway network, together with unit load, kilometre, ton-km, price and load amount per train service, hauling distance, transportation price and ton-km transportation measures.