İDO (Istanbul Fast Ferries) aims to provide Istanbulites with cheap transportation opportunity by cutting costs and opening new lines in accordance with emerging demands. İDO, which is the quickest transportation choice in Istanbul, a city encompassed by sea on three sides, rapidly continues with innovation-driven growth in accordance with customer expectations. The growth of İDO continued under the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality until 2010, and since 2011 the company continues to rise under the management of TASS Joint Venture (Tepe-Akfen-Souter-Sera). İDO, which stands out both in Turkey and abroad increasing the number of passengers by 100 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of the year, draws a great deal of interest on all its lines. THE JOURNEY OF İDO İDO has gone under many changes since General Manager Ahmet Paksoy took office in 2004. İDO was brought into existence in 1987 as a remedy to the traffic problem of Istanbul. It continued its activities in the sea transportation under the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality in 2010, and under TASS Joint Venture beginning from 2011. General Manager Ahmet Paksoy sums up the point reached in the last six years with figures: İDO increased the number of passengers to 51 million today from 11 million six years ago. “Speed is out business,” says Paksoy while including reliability, comfort and economic advantage to the transportation process. İDO aimed to become one of the cheapest transportation alternatives in Istanbul following its privatization, he says. Noting that investments will continue while achieving these goals, Paksoy says, “We keep investing all the time – investments in technology, ferries, piers, new service areas, and İDOCLUB, a wonderful customer loyalty program… Our goal is to always advance in our customer-based journey.” THE ROUTE TO CUSTOMER SATISFACTION İDO is quite assertive in returns when it comes to customer satisfaction. The affordable ticket campaign held in November and December last year is an example. Satisfied with this return Paksoy says some 71 thousand passengers and 12 thousand vehicle owners benefited from the campaign; consequently he decided to extend the campaign until 2013. Paksoy expects the same level of interest for the spring campaign: “The number of passengers and vehicles hit 234 thousand and 35 thousand respectively as of March 20 in the campaign between January 4 and March 31, 2013. Particularly, an extraordinary interest was shown in semester holiday. There was a 100 percent increase compared with last year.” Noting that there was not a radical increase in the number of passengers initially after privatization, Paksoy says, success came with right practices. İDO aims to reach 52 million passengers, 9.5 million vehicles in 2013.