Being one of the main branded metropolises of the world, Istanbul needs to utilize maritime transportation in the city more in order to increase its brand value. While land transportation plays a key role in Istanbul’s transportation, maritime transportation continues to increase its speed in urban transportation with fast ferries and newly opened routes. Even though the percentage rate of ferry transportation shifts to the railroad transportation recently, Istanbul maritime transportation includes ferries, sea buses, motorboats and sea taxis that started to operate recently. While many underground and maritime transportation systems are put into service, especially in recent years in Istanbul, potential in maritime transportation also needs to be improved. At this point, the coordination between the different transportation methods needs to be improved, and the total share of transportation in maritime transportation in Istanbul, which is a maritime city, needs to be increased further. CONSTANT CHANGES IN TRANSPORTATION When considering that Istanbul is a city that is surrounded by sea along the Marmara coast, the Prince Islands and Bosphorus line, it is seen that this potential of Istanbul cannot be utilized enough. One of the most important issues is that different transportation methods should be improved to complement each other. According to the Deputy General Manager Ufuk Tuğcu of IDO (Istanbul Sea Buses), transportation and the travel world are changed with the emergence of new routes and by specifying modern alternatives, whether of sea, land or air. For the emerging alternatives to affect the others, they allow a structure that enables different transportation options to integrate with each other. Yenikapı is the first area that is influenced positively by this change in recent years. In particular, with the opening of Marmaray and Metro, Yenikapı has strengthened its position further as a center of attraction and continues to strengthen more. With the newly created transfer centers in the city, seaway share in the urban transportation is continuing to grow. According to the 2013 data of IDO, the sea bus line of Bostancı-Bakırköy on the east-west axis of the city carried 50 million 527 thousand 752 passengers and 7 million 852 thousand and 86 vehicles, in total. Şehir Hatları Management (City Line Company) which operates Istanbul’s famous ferries, carried 50 million 217 thousand 951 passengers in total in 16 lines with 30 ferries and 16 passenger boats in 2012. SEAWAY AND RAILWAY TRANSPORTATIONS INTEGRATED To create transfer centers by integrating increasing railway transportation network with maritime transportation vehicles of Istanbul, which is surrounded by the seas in all four sides, is of great importance for easing transportation. One of the best examples of these projects is the Taksim-Kabataş Funicular. Congestion on the bridge and Metrobus can be eased by transferring passenger traffic coming from Kadıköy-Kartal Metro and Anatolian Side from Kabataş to European Side. The passengers coming from Kadıköy and Üsküdar with funicular can transfer with buses that pass on the Yenikapı-Hacıosman Metro and coast line. The line of Kabataş-Zeytinburnu that provides access to the west by Kabataş plays an important role in distributing passengers at Kabataş. In addition, with sea bus navigations of IDO through Bostancı-Kadıköy-Yenikapı- Bakırköy, comfortable transportation is provided along the east-west axis of the city. OCCUPANCY RATE SHOULD BE MANAGED PROPERLY Deputy General Manager Ufuk Tuğcu of IDO emphasizes that another important concept that emerges at this point is occupancy or occupancy management. When considering the congestion in total, it is important that if one of the transportation options is disrupted another must catch up with offering a solution, and the entire year must be planned accordingly. According to Tuğcu, it is important to assess 365 days and any season that may create congestion in a year while it is also important to make a separate plan for the summer months; to consider holidays before and after; when campaigns planned for season tariffs, to develop special designs to shift weekend congestion to weekdays are important in terms of occupancy management. SUMMER AND WINTER SHOULD BE PLANNED SEPARATELY In particular, the dynamic structure of transportation in Istanbul becomes prominent even more in recent years. New rail systems come into play, new transitions are provided along the Bosphorus. Concordantly, locations that are important strategically in transportation may change over time. While a region increases in importance, another region’s importance may decrease. Weights are shifting. Accordingly, when Bosphorus passage with ferry or motorboat may seem more enjoyable in the summer, with Marmaray coming into operation, Bosphorus passage by rail may seem more enjoyable for passengers in winter. "WE OFFER ADVANTAGES IN INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL ROUTES" We have a flexible structure as IDO, to activate ideal solutions quickly to the changing conditions. We consider the topics such as the purchasing of new ferries, opening new routes, creating different options always together with congestion and changing of weighting. Yenikapı is located in the most important base also for IDO. We develop our new plans in accordance with the change by considering this. With the shifting out of many passages to Yenikapı, we provide advantages in both internal and external routes in the new center of Istanbul. When we put our projects into effect in the coming period, we will continue to preserve our priority for our passengers fast, safe, comfortable and advantageous passages while moving forward according to the new transportation options, changing demands and intensity and changing weights. OUR PASSENGER FIGURES ARE SATISFACTORY In the last decade, there have been significant investments in maritime transportation in Istanbul. Urban transportation systems were also improved. Public transportation systems in Istanbul are becoming an integrated structure with land, sea, railway transportation vehicles based on rail systems. While the utilization rate of seaway in public transportation in 2004 was 2.5 percent, today's rate is about 5-6%. However, when considering Maritime Transportation in Istanbul originally as an alternative mode for passage between the two sides, maritime transportation share in traffic is about 23%. The number of passengers carried by sea will increase as long as the population and traffic mobility per capita increase. Rail systems will be the backbone of urban transportation. Integration of other modes of transportation must be regarded as an indicator of a well-managed city. We can say that Istanbul is benefiting from maritime transportation, because Şehir Hatları Management, IDO, special passenger motor boats are doing thousands of passages on many routes every day. Certainly the increase in maritime transportation is not directly proportionate to the increasing city population. Nonetheless, the number of passengers carried is increasing each year. Even after putting Marmaray into service, as City Lines, our passenger figures are at a satisfactory level. In addition, we hope that these numbers will increase when correct routes will be put into service.