Fuels and Alternative Fuels Options for Public Transportation of Istanbul

Fuels and Alternative Fuels Options for Istanbul

Istanbul; one of the most crowded cities in the world; being a home to 13,255,6851 people makes Istanbul the mostcrowded city in Europe. People all around Turkey have migrated because of the opportunities in Istanbul. Although this can be seen as a mosaic of different cultures, the high population density in the metropolitanarea causes lots of problems. Difficulties in urban development, unplanned city infrastructure, have always been some of the biggest issues discussed on Istanbul. But for most inhabitants, the most important problem is the transportation problem.

In metropolitan cities, travelling from a point to another is a problem in itself. The problem gets bigger especially in the peak hours. But that is not the only problem; instead it is not the biggest problem. There areother problems that are more confusing and caused by the transportation: Environmental and economic problems. The global warming is one of the biggest threats of for the human nature and caused by non-natural human actions. Thereasons for the global warming are the greenhouse gasses.Those gases are the result of burning fuel to get energy.Transportation itself is the one of the biggest contributor to the greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Moreover, oil prices are rising day by day, the other fossil fuel prices rising correlated to oil prices.

European Union Emissions Standards

The limitations for carbon emissions of the vehicles in the European Union are standardized with the European emissions standards. Although Turkey is not a EU country,the government follows the European standards in almost every sector thanks to the started negotiations of Turkeywith EU to become a member. Despite not being very enthusiastic to become a part of the EU, both the Turkishgovernment and the people, everybody knows that the EU standards raise the living conditions. Because of that, the Turkish regulations on the limitations of the carbon emissions follow the EU standards.

Starting from July 1992, European union directives limit the polluter gasses emitted by the vehicles. The first standard was called the EURO 1. We are now on the EURO 5 stage. EURO 6 is scheduled to enter in force by September20147. As shown in the tables 1 and 2, the limitations aregetting stricter by the time. The standards limit. In theEURO emissions scheme, there is no obligatory limitation for CO2 emissions. There are several non-obligatory limitations for CO2 emissions: The European Commission hasa strategy which was adopted in 2007 in order to reduce the CO2 to the levels accepted by the Kyoto Protocol. The objective of this project was to decrease the CO2 emissions of the new cars to 120 grams/km by 20129. The voluntary ACEA agreement is between European Automobile Manufacturers Association and the EC. Signed in 1998, theaim was to achieve average emissions of 140 g/km for passenger cars sold in the EU. According to the 2009 and 2010 reports of JATO (JATO), the agreement was not successful, but in 2011, a major part of the automobile manufacturers have reached the levels below the agreed levels (JATO, 2011).

Transportation in Istanbul

When thinking about Istanbul, the first things coming to mind are the historical places and mosques. But nowadays,Istanbul is also famous about its traffic jams in peak hours. Although the average journey time by car is 49 minutes2, it sometimes takes more than 2 hours to travel within the city. 59% of the people in Istanbul concern mostly of traffic congestion, in London instead the number is 43% (Gerçek, 2009)

There is a high usage of public transportation in Istanbul; 41% of the total population use public transportation whereas only about 16% with their private

cars daily3. In London instead, only 37% of the people travelling choose public transportation. Based on these data, we can say that the people living in Istanbul commonly use the public transportation. There seems no problem with the usage of the public transportation. The big problems are in the methods of the transportation. Although it’s commonly used, the transportation system isnot energy efficient and environmentally friendly. We candivide the public transportation into three sectors in order to facilitate our analysis: Road, rail and maritime. The most common way of transportation is occurred on roads by 87.3%. 10.17% of the people choose travelling on railways, and the remaining 2.53% travels by maritime public transportation5.

Fuels and emissions of Istanbul

The main contributor to carbon emissions in urban areas is the transportation. The reduction of carbon emissions in transports sector will have a positive effect on reduction of the emissions of greenhouse gasses. There isa 37% increase in the emissions from road transport in Istanbul, since 19904. There are several technological innovations in the world in transportation sector however; the innovations mostly are not in use in Istanbul. In cities with a higher usage of high-tech cleaner cars, there is a still need of a high usage of public transportation. Its just a simple logic, when people share the vehıcle, they also share the carbon emitted. To produce less carbon, people should prefer public transportation instead of private cars, either if they have high-tech cleaner cars or not.

The road transportation has the largest percentage in total modes of transportation in Istanbul thanks to automobiles. 70% of the people total 87% people are travelling by public transportation6. Still it has the largest share in Istanbul’s public transportation scheme.There are 3 major local bus operators in Istanbul: IETT, HALK OTOBUSLERI, OTOBUS AS. The municipality of Istanbul operates all the buses of IETT. The municipality governs

the other two operators, but the routes are operated by private sector. The buses in operation must follow the regulations of the local government. The IETT has the largest fleet with 2759 buses (IETT, 2010). Only 200 of these buses have the Euro 5 standards. 50% of the total 2759 buses don’t meet even the Euro 1 standards. We shouldn’t be surprised with these numbers, we sometimes don’t need any calculation or any measurements; driving on the roads of Istanbul is enough to experience the quality standards of the IETT buses. It is almost too difficult to breath if you are stuck in the traffic next to those buses, you can also see the black smoke, obstructing the visibility.

There is a correlation between the fuel consumption and carbon emissions; the more fuel we burn, more carbon we emit. In some cases, in less technological motors, we have to burn more to have the energy we need. Using the fuel efficiently, meaning burning less to have the same amount of energy, we are going to emit less carbon. We can’t say that the buses of IETT are energy efficient andenvironmentally friendly. According to a research in 2006; the average fuel consumption of the IETT buses is 48.12 l/100km (Diler, 2006). The fuel for the buses is diesel. When we look at the carbon emissions of the same buses given in the same research, we see a worse scenario: The average carbon emission of the buses is 1.34 kg/km. The emissions are much higher than the EC and Kyoto targets.

10.71% total people travelling daily prefer travelling byrailways. All of the railway transportation is public6. Only 20% of this portion, 2% of total transportation is done by underground metros. There is only one metro line,having 13 stations in 12kms length. The remaining 62kms of the total railway transportation operated on over ground rails, 50% of this is street trams and 50% is suburban trains.

The Bosporus and the Sea of Marmara is used effectively for the transportation. Approximately 350,000 people travel daily. Most of the people travel between European

and Asian sides.

Alternative fuel options for Istanbul

Railways are more efficient ways of transportation. On railways, carrying capacities are higher than the ones onthe road. In urban public transportation, the most commonfuel used is electricity. Electricity is a clean fuel (clean for the metropolitan areas because generated mostly in rural areas) for the cities. The rail network of Istanbul must be developed in order to reduce the usage of road transport. Current capacity of railroads isnot enough to meet the demand in Istanbul. The municipality and other local governments must focus on increasing the railroad capacities. By shifting the public transportation to railways from road, it will be easier to cut carbon emission thanks to the usage of electricity. There are several investments in order to upgrade the underground lines; in addition to that there are 4 more lines under construction. Although it is called as 4 new lines for Metro Istanbul, the projected capacity and line lengths are relatively small. The biggest construction project is The Marmaray project. Theprojects connects European and Asian parts of Istanbul under the Bosporus; by a tunnel at a length of 1,4 km under the Bosporus, and connection tunnels of 9,8 km8. Although the project is new and innovative for Istanbul, it only adds 10 km of new railroads. Still it is a good alternative to 2 bridges connecting European and Asian parts of Istanbul, which both have limited capacities.

There are good and effective projects in order to increase the railway capacity of Istanbul, but still the efforts of the local government is not enough. In a crowded metropolitan city, there must be a good underground network. Using underground railways, people could avoid traffic and save time; this encourages peopleto use underground. As one of the worlds most crowded metropolitan cities like Istanbul, London is a good example, having good and commonly used underground railway network. Table 5 shows the total shares of daily journey stages in London. Despite the usage of

underground in Istanbul, the usage of underground is 10% in London, all powered by electricity. If the undergroundnetwork of Istanbul improved, its total share in transportation will increase. By increasing the total usage of electrified railway transportation, the total carbon emitted from transportation will decrease.

The EURO carbon emissions standards limits the carbons emitted by the vehicles to a low limit. Limiting the carbon emissions with according to that scheme will help to reduce the pollutant gasses within Istanbul. As a metropolitan municipality, the Istanbul municipality mustwork harder; they have to go below the limits. Using new technologies in public transportation, the buses will useless fuel and emit less gas; they will also save money.

I believe, one day in the future, the buses of Istanbul will be a symbol like the buses of London. -Kadir Topbaş,Mayor of Istanbul.

The speech of the Mayor Kadir Topbaş was actually describing the red buses of London. Since the red buses of London going “green”, London can be taken as example in terms of their clean buses.

TFL, the government responsible for the transportation inLondon has started to rebuild their bus fleet. According to the official TFL website, the total number of hybrid buses in London is 300 by 2011; and from 2012 and onwards, all the new buses entering to the fleet will be hybrid9. The bus fleet of London also has fuel cell busesusing hydrogen.

According to American Public Transportation Association, Diesel exhaust has been classified as a probable human carcinogen with no safe level of exposure (2005). Since the most of the buses of Istanbul don’t even meet the Euro 2 standards, it is now the time to make radical changes in the bus fleet. Reducing the emissions by EURO 5 or even EURO 6 standards or below is very good but not enough. Even on those levels, there are still polluter gases spreading around the world. The governments of the

big cities must do more than this; they must have a target of having much more vehicles, which are low-carbon, below the regulations. The option is using electric vehicles, but there are several alternatives of electric vehicles. Electric vehicles mainly come in threemain types: Battery electric vehicles; which powered onlyby electricity, Hybrid electric vehicles; powered by a combination of electric motor and a diesel/petrol combustion engine, Plug-in Hybrid electric vehicles; having the same manner with hybrid engines but have a large batter and can be charged when not in use (SEI, 2007). The capital costs are higher than the traditional diesel buses; electric powered buses require less energy and less diesel (hybrid powered) in operation. If used intensively, electric buses are more economical than diesel buses. Table 3 shows the total costs occurred in the purchase and operation of electric buses.

Hydrogen vehicles are using hydrogen as fuel. They mainlyburn hydrogen in an internal combustion engine or react hydrogen with oxygen in a fuel cell to run the electric motor. Hydrogen vehicles are zero-carbon vehicles, emitting only water (Wang, 2002). Fuel cell hydrogen buses are not commonly used, but as the technology develops, we will be able to see and use more hydrogen fuel cell buses in the cities. There are now 3 hydrogen buses operating in London. According to London’s 2025 targets to reduce carbon emissions, the zero-carbon busses started to get into the fleet by 2011. It is planned to have more fuel-cell buses in the future. As the Mayor Istanbul cites the London buses, the municipality should also focus on the hydrogen buses operating in London. If we want our buses to be like a symbol, we should be more innovative and environmentally friendly. The fuel-cell buses are among the best options for road transportation of Istanbul.

The most important benefit of using electric buses is environmental benefit. As shown in the Table 4, by using electric buses, it is possible to decrease the polluter gas emissions radically, to levels nearly half of the diesel buses when using hybrid motors, and it could be

reduced more than the half of the diesel emissions when plug-in hybrid buses used. The municipality of Istanbul should think about the environmental issues more than economic issues. Although profitability is an important figure in today world, the government initiatives must think in a wider perspective and they also take in consideration the future impacts of the gasses emitted asa result of burning fuel.

Changing the bus fleet and all the transportation vehicles sometimes may be hard and expensive for the local governments.

Non-Motorized Transportation

In small towns and villages, one of the most often used modes of travel is non-motorized. People usually walk or cycle. It can be sometimes more complicated in metropolitan areas because of the nature of the cities which are established on broad areas. The distances are usually longer in metropolitan cities. Encouraging peopleto walk or cycle to the places that they want to go is difficult. Bike-sharing systems are now very popular in everywhere in the world. In this system, there are bicycle-renting lots spread all around the city and people rent those bikes by using their credit cards. Theycan leave the bikes to any of the lots around the city. It is useful because people don’t have to think about their bikes, they just leave and forget it. They might re-rent if they need again, or they can choose any other transport mode. It is very popular around the world, especially in Europe, but Istanbul still doesn’t have a system like this. This kind of system can be a good alternative especially in the coastal areas of Bosporus; people can avoid the traffic and travel by a zero-carbon vehicle. Again decreasing number of vehicles will mean decreasing carbon emissions.

TABLE 1 Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_emission_standards

TABLE 2Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_emission_standards

TABLE 3: When is it worth buying a hybrid busSource: Sustainable Energy Ireland

TABLE 4Source: Source: Sustainable Energy Ireland

Table 5: Modal Shares of Daily Journey Stages in London in 2009Source: www.tfl.gov.uk

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