35 million holiday travelers | Turkish Economy News

Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Abdulkadir Uraloğlu stated that they expect 30 to 35 million citizens to travel as the Eid al-Fitr holiday lasts 9 days, and that they have taken all precautions in land, air and railways in this context. Uraloğlu said, “On state roads with high traffic density, especially on highways, the missing lanes for various reasons such as maintenance and repair have been opened to traffic. In addition, we cooperated with the Ministry of Internal Affairs to take stricter measures at points where accidents occur frequently. We expect our citizens to be more careful.” he said.

Reminding that they increased the capacity of mainline and regional trains as well as high-speed train services due to the holiday, Uraloğlu continued as follows: “We will increase the capacity of 18 thousand 84 seats with additional trips that will start on April 5 on high-speed train lines.” Uraloğlu also pointed out that all necessary preparations were made by the State Airports Authority (DHMİ). Uraloğlu stated that they have given permission to bus companies to use the buses used in tourism transportation and said: “Administrative fines will be imposed on companies that engage in pirated transportation, operate without a travel permit, pick up or drop off passengers in unauthorized places, and issue bus tickets at exorbitant prices. In addition, We also requested that bus companies meet the demands by adding additional trips.

Birol Özcan, Chairman of the Turkish Bus Drivers Federation (TOFED), said that the additional trips opened after the bus tickets were sold out started to fill up. Özcan said, “The Ministry gave permission for additional flights until April 16. So we opened our additional services. Our main flights were already full for the Eid al-Fitr. Additional flights started to fill up. As of today, bus services are full. While our daily bus services were 1000 to 1100 trips.” “It will increase to 2 thousand as of tomorrow. With this number of trips, we are close to the number of bus trips before the pandemic. The fact that the holiday is 9 days long is effective in this. This holiday will be a fruitful holiday.” he said. Özcan called on citizens to buy tickets from companies departing from bus terminals.

Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu said that bridges and highways will be free of charge during the holiday. Uraloğlu said, “Bridges and highways operated by the General Directorate of Highways will be free of charge for 9 days, starting from Saturday morning until the end of the holiday, by the decision of our President. We also paused road works on our highway routes with heavy traffic. We have taken additional measures in holiday regions with heavy traffic. The road continues during the holiday. “We have reduced maintenance and repair work to a minimum,” he said.