Istanbul is one of the largest cities in Europe with a population of 20 million. Naturally, it is a matter of fact that in such a huge metropolis, people's travel amenities constitute a major problem in itself, especially if the infrastructure of the city is old and not appropriate.
The Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, which has been dealing with this issue for many years, has eventually determined that the solution to this major problem would be to build and expand the underground network rapidly. By building a hundreds of kilometers long metro line in quite a short period of time, the Municipality has made it possible for the citizens of Istanbul to enjoy a little comfort while travelling round the city every day.
In the meantime, Istanbul Municipality, which has truly proved to be keen on using modern technologies, has also enjoyed the honor of running one of the best metros in the world and certainly in Europe.
The International Association of Public Transporters (UITP), the world's largest non-governmental organization in the public transport sector, has announced the results of its survey on passenger transport capacity of the driverless subway lines in the world. According to these results UITP selected M5 Üsküdar-Çekmeköy driverless metro line as first in Europe and third in the world.
UITP has offices in Dubai, Moscow, Istanbul, Rome, Sao Paulo, Bangalore, Ivory Coast, Hong Kong and Canberra. According to UITP's research, M5 Üsküdar-Çekmeköy Metro Line, operated by Metro İstanbul, left behind cities like Paris, Rome and Barcelona.
Among the 62 subway lines that provide driverless transport around the world, there are 22 metro lines with more than 500 passenger capacity at one time. The Milano M5 Line carries 536 people at a time, while 2,000 passengers can travel on the Singapore Circle MRT Line. The Singapore Circle line ranks first in line with the highest passenger capacity, followed by the Singapore North East MRT Line, another metro line in Singapore.
The M5 Üsküdar-Çekmeköy Metro Line, which came third, leaving behind 20 driverless metro lines in the world, also ranked first among the metro lines in Europe, on the same list. Following Turkey's first driverless metro line, Rome came second with its 1,200 passenger capacity metro line and Barcelona third with a carrying capacity of 895 passengers, at one time.
21 vehicles (with 6 cars each) run on M5 Üsküdar-Çekmeköy Metro Line which can carry up to 1,620 passengers at one time.
