Transport Network in Ankara and the Location and Connections of the

Specific to this study, additional information about Ankara is useful. Ankara is the capital city and the second most populated city of Turkey. These qualifications of Ankara make the city an attraction point for the middle-class residents, who are mostly government employees. As explained in detail in the previous chapters car ownership rates in Ankara is increasing exponentially. Even if the car ownership rates in Ankara is roughly 234 cars per 1000 population, which is low compared with to the Western European and North American examples, this exponential increase eventually will result with a dramatic congestion problem (Hürriyet Gazetesi, 2015).

After all, Ankara has the highest private car ownership rate per 1000 population in Turkey currently. Actually, especially in the last 10 years new road constructions have been made to reduce this congestion problem. Nevertheless, such road schemes as grade-separated junctions and road widening proved to be ineffective in solving congestion and only resulted in more road traffic, diverting passengers from rail based modes to roads.

The city has also witnessed substantial investments in urban rail infrastructure. After the opening of the Ankaray light rail line and the first metro line in 1996 and 1997 respectively, in the first half of 2014, two new metro lines opened with the names of M2 (on the southwest corridor) and M3 (on the west corridor as an extension of the first metro line). Following these investments, a cable car line was introduced on June 2014. As it can be seen from Figure 10, there is also a new metro line between the city center (in which the metro lines are crossing) and the northern parts that is under construction with the name of M4. The local government supports metro investments, by re-organizing the routes of municipality bus services operating parallel to these metro corridors. However, privately operated buses and dolmuş lines have not been reorganized to feed into and integrate with the new metro systems. The

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lack of the integration projects required during that process resulted with the low metro usage especially on the southwest corridor line (Çayyolu Line) (Öncü Yıldız, 2015).

The integration of public transport also requires an integrated fare system. The city has a smart card system called “AnkaraKart”, and this is valid on the Metro and the public buses (run by EGO). However, the card is not valid on dolmuş and privately operated buses, which require cash payment. The smart card provides two free transfers for students, and two transfer costing 67 kuruş each for full fare within 75 minutes of the first travel. However, with municipality’s low share in total motorized trips, this transfer opportunity is way off the mark. Without the inclusion of dolmuş with almost 30% share in modal split, and the inclusion of privately operated buses, this integrated ticketing project works with a limited efficiency.

Figure 10. Ankara Rail Systems and Cable Car Map (Ankara Greater Municipality EGO Website)

At this point, it is necessary to explain the location of METU Campus and related to that, the transportation opportunities to METU Campus. METU Campus is on the southwest corridor of Ankara urban area, which is one of the two main development

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corridors since the 1970s as mentioned in the transportation history section (See Figure 11). As can be seen from the figure below, there are three entrances of METU campus namely A1 (Eskişehir Road) Entrance, A4 (Yüzüncüyıl) Entrance and A7 (Bilkent) Entrance. As will be presented in the upcoming sections, none of the survey participants are using the A7 (Bilkent) entrance. Consequently, the A7 (Bilkent) entrance is not included in the analysis in this study. Besides there is an entrance named as A2 entrance on the Eskişehir Road however, in the current situation, it is not operating. A1 (Eskişehir Road) Entrance is the major gate for many of the students because this entrance has the accessibility by all means of public transport in the city, namely public buses, private buses, dolmuş and now the newly opened M2 Metro line. Public bus operations have been reorganized with the introduction of M2 metro line and currently they are not operating between city center and METU Campus, parallel to metro operations. An important point about the entrances is that most of the campus users use A1 (Eskişehir Road) entrance in accessing the campus.

The reason for the high usage rate of this entrance among the students is a direct result of the diversity in public transport choices. Currently, private buses, metro services and majority of the dolmuş services are using A1 (Eskişehir Road) entrance during their operations. Besides, as the metro route is following Eskişehir Road on the southwest corridor, it is important to indicate that out of the routes, which are operating directly to METU campus, there are also other bus and minibus routes, which are passing in front of the campus entrance. Even though these lines are not METU campus lines, they are actually serving the population that is commuting to the campus. Emphasizing that information is important because, the high usage level of A1 (Eskişehir Road) entrance is directly related with these diverse transportation opportunities.

On the other hand, using the A4 (Yüzüncüyıl) entrance is also quite common for two reasons. First one of them is, as can be seen from the name of the entrance, it is directly connected to Yüzüncüyıl Neighborhood, which is an area with dense student population.The second one is, as stated before, many of the public transport services are radially operating from the city center. Along the eastern part of the campus, probably as a result of the demand of the users, some dolmuş vehicles and some private buses are operating between campus and eastern neighborhoods of the city.

That is why, even if it is lower than A1 entrance, compared with the other trip

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attraction zones in the city, A4 (Yüzüncüyıl) entrance has a significant accessibility.

In the light of this information, the following sections presents the findings of the survey regarding the access of METU students from the city to the METU campus.

Figure 11. Location of METU Campus and Accessibility Options (Ankara Development Agency Regional Plan , 2014; Middle East Technical University

Website, 2016)