Sustainably bridged
Financing a section of a trunk road. Turkey – and its largest city Istanbul in particular – is a vital hub for freight traffic between Europe and the Middle East. The ‘Northern Marmara Highway’ will soon provide better roads in the west of the metropolis.
At the end of October this year the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD) announced that it is set to invest approximately EUR 40 million in the Nakkaş–Başakşehir section of the ‘Northern Marmara Highway’.
The move comes as an integral part of a EUR 1.04 billion loan package financed by international institutions. The project aims to improve Istanbul’s east–west links, reduce road congestion in the region and increase overall traffic safety.
It is being developed under a build-operate-transfer agreement by a consortium led by Rönesans Holding, working in partnership with the Samsung C & T Corporation and other Korean investors. The project includes a 31.3 km toll road in the west of Istanbul and a 1.6 km cable-stayed bridge as well as several overpasses and underpasses on the route.
Thanks to the new solar energy generation system that will be installed as part of the Nakkaş–Başakşehir project, clean energy from solar panels will meet the needs of an operations and management centre as well as of the highway’s rest areas.
Deploying electric and hybrid vehicles
By installing more than 4,500 LED lamps, to replace the sodium lamps now used, energy consumption can be reduced by 38% and more than 35 MWh saved.
Overall the project, in which all vehicles in the motorway’s operations and management centre will be electric or hybrid units, is expected to save approximately 112,000 l of fossil fuel a year.