Akçaray is the

tram A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which Rolling stock, vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some ...

way line serving in

İzmit İzmit () is a municipality and the capital Districts of Turkey, district of Kocaeli Province, Turkey. Its area is 480 km2, and its population is 376,056 (2022). The capital of Kocaeli Province, it is located at the Gulf of İzmit in the Sea ...

, which is a city in the

province A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

of Kocaeli,

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

with a population of 367,990. Izmit and Kocaeli are part of Turkey's industrial heartland situation to the east of

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

and on the north coast of the

Marmara Sea The Sea of Marmara, also known as the Sea of Marmora or the Marmara Sea, is a small inland sea entirely within the borders of Turkey. It links the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea via the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits, separating Turkey's E ...

. It has the distinction of being the first and currently the only tramway line in the district of Kocaeli and one of two mass transit lines with the construction of the

Gebze Metro The Gebze Metro () is an under-construction rapid transit system in Gebze and Darıca, Turkey. The system consists of a single long line running north from Darıca to Gebze The metro system will be the first network to exist outside of a provinc ...

History

The first tender for the preparation of Akçaray implementation projects was held in January 2014. In the following days, a public vote on the name and color of the tramway line was announced by the Kocaeli Metropolitan and Izmit Municipalities. A tramway wagon was brought to the Anıtpark Square in İzmit and showcased by drawing electricity with a cable. The tender for the construction of the line was held on May 20, 2015. The general contracting firm Gülermak won the tender for 113 million 990 thousand TL. The groundbreaking ceremony of the project took place on October 19, 2015. Construction work took place between October 2015 and June 2017 when the line opened for public use. During the design phase of the line, controversy arose around plans to repurpose an old railway right of way that had been converted into a pedestrian path into one for the new tramway route.

First phase

The line was put into service with a ceremony on June 17, 2017, with service running every 20 minutes, and on 11 stations spanning the line between Otogar and Sekapark. At the opening ceremony,

Ministry of National Defense (Turkey) The Ministry of National Defence (Turkish language, Turkish: ''Millî Savunma Bakanlığı'') is a cabinet-level agency of the Government of Turkey responsible for managing the Turkish Armed Forces and its supportive defence establishments to s ...

Fikri Işık Fikri Işık MP (born 13 September 1965) is a Turkish politician who served as the last Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey from 2017 to 2018. Previously, he served as Minister of Science, Industry and Technology from 2013 to 2016 and Minister of ...

announced that the line would be free of charge until July 15, 2017. Headways were reduced to every 15 minutes, 4 days after the line's opening. The frequency of trains was arranged to be between 5 and 15 minutes (depending on the hours of the day) with the start of the school term in September.

Second phase

The first 4 stations of the Sekapark to Plajyolu section, the second phase of the line, were put into service on February 9, 2019. In November 2019, 4 more stations were added to the line and extended to Plajyolu. The tender for the extension line to Kuruçeşme was held in 2020. The extension to Kuruçeşme was opened on April 20, 2023. After the opening of the second stage of the line, it was announced that a free transfer agreement was signed with the cooperatives in the region for the 4 lines in the Alikahya neighborhood towards the Otogar direction. The -long vehicles in service have a total capacity of 290 passengers, including 50 seats and 240 standing. The line, which was opened in June 2017, carried 23 million passengers between the date of its opening and November 2019.

Stations

References

{{Local transport in Turkey İzmit Tram transport in Turkey Izmit