From March to June 2009, an innovative project was successfully carried out by DB International with DB Schenker’s Turkish joint venture partner ARKAS, one of the largest private logistics and transport companies in Turkey, on the design for a multimodal logistics centre with railway sidings, in the hinterland of Istanbul.
Among others, ARKAS owns 27 container ships and operates several Turkish ports. Furthermore, ARKAS also has a subsidiary AR-GÜ, which is one of the first private railway undertakings in Turkey, owning more than 500 wagons. As part of the process to liberalise the railways in Turkey, AR-GÜ is applying for an operator licence on the country's existing rail-way network.
Indeed, it appears that railway operations in Turkey will be assuming an increasingly significant role in the near future. The state railway TCDD is pursuing major plans to upgrade the passenger and freight transport network with corresponding invitations to tender taking place for the infrastructure projects. This also includes the development of multimodal logistics platforms, including railway sidings, such as the project initiated by ARKAS.
Together with the country’s major, growing economy and population of 72 million people, who seem to have been less severely affected by the current economic crisis thanks to previous restructuring of the banking landscape, Turkey also has a principle geographic role to play as the link between Asia and Europe. These, therefore, constitute excellent economic and logistics prerequisites for upgrading the country's logistics infrastructures and linking them up to the national and international transport networks.
And so the development of the logistics centre, with the involvement of DB International’s logistics team on behalf of ARKAS, is right in line with current trends.
