Husseyin Uludag, Ulastirma Bak. Hakkı Turaylic Cd.

4^th European Bus & Coach Forum
"Facilitating International Regular Services by Bus and Coach in Europe"
Friday, 21 October 2005, 09:30 - 13:30
Meeting Centre "Gruzenberg", Kortrijk Xpo, Belgium

1st Interactive Panel Session

Husseyin Uludag - Ulastirma Bak. Hakkı Turaylic Cd.

Mr. Chairman,
Mr. President of IRU,
Mr. Secretary of ECMT,

Distinguished panelists and participants,

First of all, I deem it an honor for me to speak in front of such a distinguished group of members and I would like to express my gratitude to the Organization for their invitation.

I would like to start my speech with giving some brief information about the passenger transport by road in Turkey.

There are some national passenger transport services where the distance between the departure and arrival points may be accounting to 2000 km in Turkey, a big country, which has a population of 71 million and an area of 769.604 km square and a road length along 63389 km.

Passenger transports are performed through modes of maritime, airways, railways and roadways as in all the countries.
However, when we take a look at the distribution by modes we see that the seaways with a rate of 0.01% is almost not used, the rate of the railways is 2.5% and the airways is 3% with an increase in recent times.

Road transport is used with a rate of 95%, where at least half of it is performed by the buses and coaches.
When we consider that in Turkey the main transport mode is road transport and a half of it is performed by buses, we have to mention thousands of bus services.

These rates, which are steady for many years, have caused to arise a model for passenger transport by bus which may be nowhere else but only in Turkey.

Today, 10000 certificated busses, whom 2000 of them is licensed for international services, perform regular and shuttle services.

Transports performed with small busses for a distance of 100 km are not included in this number.

The model for passenger transport by bus in our country has created an employment volume of 350 000 people. The system has constituted an investment area for 6 billion dollars and the annual business volume is 3 billion dollars.

Traveling by bus provided a freedom of movement for the middle class people who don’t posses a vehicle of their own and cannot use the expensive modes like airways. It provides a through connection to all the points which modes of airways, seaways and railways cannot enable.

Passenger transport by bus has a wide experience in our country. Today, thousands of modern buses provide the comforts and conveniences of air flight. Bus services provide VIP choices and services.

With kind permission, I would like to mention about the international passenger transport by road. As I mentioned before, nearly 2000 busses are authorized by our Ministry to perform international passenger transport by bus.

These 2000 busses belonging to 124 companies, operate regular passenger transports with 243 joint regular transport agreements to many countries with a wide range of from Europe to Middle East. In 2003 a total of 1.150.000 international passengers were transported.

However, when we take a look at these 243 line agreements, we see that only 87 of them are to Europe and 61 of the 87 agreements are with Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia and Greece. Rest of the line agreements are concluded with middle-eastern countries like Syria, Iraq, Iran, Nahcevan (Naxcivan) and Azerbaijan.

As you well know, setting up a line for regular passenger line between two countries is constituted through bilateral road transport agreements.

Even though most of the agreements are quite similar to each other, there are 23 different agreements concluded for regular passenger transports to/from 23 countries. Protocols enable the implementation of these agreements and they are renewed every year.

Setting up each line is possible with the approvals of the destination and transit countries under the agreements. For example, in order to set up a regular passenger transport line between Turkey and Germany, transit permits from Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria have to be obtained. When it is considered that there is a separate bilateral agreement with each country, the procedure takes quite a long time. Due to this, it requires an additional work load and causes time loss both for the ministry of transports and the transport companies.

Considering the separate agreements with each country, it gives rise to different implementations for the same type of transports. It will facilitate the woks of both the companies and the Ministries to set up the lines under the common rules and considerations.

Within the existing system;

• The authorization periods show differences.

• The procedures for obtaining permits vary.

• In the bilateral agreements, the requirements and the qualifications wanted from the countries vary.

• The amount of the permit fees vary.

• The procedures in each border gate vary.

• Forged permit problems may occur.

• Some companies cannot set up the lines they demand to, because of the fact that they cannot obtain permission from the concerned country.

• These kinds of problems are some of the ones that our country and the Turkish operators face in the international lines.

As I mentioned before, even though the provisions of the agreements are similar to each other in general, it is natural that there are some differences in some cases. To say the least, it will facilitate the operation of the system to require the basic determined provisions in all agreements. Particularly concerning the border crossings and the sanctions in case of violating the rules of the agreements, it will make the transports more regular when a common procedure is constituted.

Distinguished participants,

As is known, Turkey has been targeting the full membership to European Union for a long time. Turkey has become an acceding country since 03rd October 2005.
On this account, Turkey has concluded all preparations for harmonization of its legislation to EU acquis in the field of transport as well as all the other fields. Harmonization to the acquis in the field of transport has been achieved as 95% to date.
The Ministry of Transport licenses the operators and hauliers. Our Ministry has made two basic regulations so as to fulfill our national requirements.

First of them is the Road Transport Law issued in 19th July 2003. This law is an framework in which the general conditions for the market access and the qualifications for the profession are determined.
The other one is the Road Transport Regulation issued in 25th February 2004 on the basis of the mentioned law. With this regulation, harmonization of the 13 EU Statutes and 8 Directives which fall into the sphere of our duties and commitments are targeted.
Very briefly we can mention the following items in this Regulation:

• Qualifications required for the profession are defined in detail.

• Market access conditions are defined in detail.

• Rules of competition are described.

• The vehicles to be used in the transports are defined in detail.

• The specialization fields in the sector are defined by 39 separate authorization certificates including domestic and international passenger transports.

• The rights and duties of the employees working in the sector are defined.

• The rights and duties of the customers are defined.

• The institutional transport approach is adopted rather than the individual transport.

Good reputation, professional competence and the financial sufficiency, which are required for entering to the adn are the basic elements considered in this new law.

The EU legislation 684/92 has brought forth common rules in the passenger transport. Terms such as bus, regular service, shuttle service are fully harmonized to the Regulation. Further more, a harmonization is made in the conditions of the authorizations in the passenger transport.

In addition to all these, the procedure for being party ADR agreement concerning the Transport of Dangerous Goods is going on.
Furthermore, an EU supported project under the Assistance to Road Transport Sector Project is conducted. The twinning project has been started, the needs for training are determined and purchasing of 1500 PCs for roadside checking is near realization.

Turkey is a party to ASOR Agreemnet and hsa signed the INTERBUS Agreement. The INTERBUS Agreement has been approved by Parliament bu not yet entered into force. It is planned that the INTERBUS is going to be in effect very soon.

Therefore, the international occasional passenger transports are currently performed under ASOR. Nonetheless, by the effective date of the INTERBUS, the provisions of this Agreement will be valid within this respect.

Turkey, believes that an agreemnet like INTERBUS, which provides a multilateral framework for certain types of occasional services by touring coach, will also facilitate the international regular passenger transport.

During the Custom controls, the busses which perform international regular passenger transports should be given priority. It is obvious that it will be easier and faster for the transports within the context of a common agreement. For promoting the bus services for the international travels, one of the most important item is fastening the customs control procedures and complete the custom operations of the passengers very soon.

Turkey provides a training planning work for the staff in our borders.

I hope the forum will give fruitful results for all the participants.

Thank you very much for your kind attention and politeness.

[ top ]