UYGAR Attends the 11th Transport, Maritime and Communications Council

 

The 11th Transport, Maritime and Communications Council opened on Thursday, 5 September at the İstanbul Congress Center with the large participation of politicians, academics, municipal employees and domestic and foreign public and private sector stakeholders. At the council, attended by 6,000 participants and where the future of our country's transport investments was discussed for 3 days, 92 papers were presented in 7 groups: Highways, Railways, Maritime, Aviation and Space Technologies, Urban Transport, Communications, and Pipelines. Faculty members and assistants of the UYGAR Center and Transportation Engineering worked on the preliminary reports of the Highway, Railway, Urban Transport and Pipelines Groups for the 11th Transport, Maritime and Communications Council, which had been in preparation for more than a year and a half.
 

The opening speech of the program was delivered by Piri Reis University Vice President Prof. Dr. Oral Erdoğan. Following this, İstanbul Governor Hüseyin Avni Mutlu and Minister of Transport, Maritime Affairs and Communications Binali Yıldırım each gave a speech, and the opening session was completed with the reading of a congratulatory message from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and a speech by President Abdullah Gül.

 

Among the participants at the opening were Minister of Health Mehmet Müezzinoğlu, Minister of Customs and Trade Hayati Yazıcı, Minister of National Defense İsmet Yılmaz, Minister of Justice Sadullah Ergin and Member of Parliament Beşir Atalay. In his speech, President Abdullah Gül, while setting out the points he considered important regarding transport investments, emphasized that information technology is taking an increasing place in our lives every day and referred to the importance of such work in contributing to our country's development process. Minister Binali Yıldırım shared with the participants general and important information about the work done to date, including raising highway standards and developing networks, high-speed railways built and planned, the rapid growth of airlines, making air travel accessible to the general public and the airports built, as well as the vital role of the maritime sector in foreign trade and the work done and planned in this context. The first day of the council ended with a roundtable meeting attended by the ministers.
 

On the second day of the council, Head of the Department of Transportation Engineering and UYGAR Chair Prof. Dr. Mustafa Ilıcalı ‘moderated the Highway Evaluation Meeting. In this session, Ilıcalı also gave a presentation on "Road Traffic Safety 2023-2035 Vision". In his presentation, Ilıcalı set out the current state of road traffic safety in our country, the improvements and work carried out, global development trends and, in this context, a projection for our country. Director General of Highways Cahit Turhan and deputy directors general Uğur Kenan Adil and Erol Altun were also present at the evaluation meeting.
 

On the same day, at the Railway Evaluation Meeting, Department of Transportation Engineering faculty member Assist. Prof. Dr. Aybike Öngel gave a presentation on "Noise Barrier Applications on Railways". Öngel shared examples of some of the work carried out and ongoing in our country under UYGAR's consultancy on "noise barriers," which serve to eliminate noise pollution on railways.

On the last day of the council, the topic of "customs-free and visa-free movement," a joint request of 14 foreign ministers and 10 deputy ministers, was voiced by Minister of Transport, Maritime Affairs and Communications Binali Yıldırım. Yıldırım focused on the phenomenon of migration on a global scale, sustainable development and Türkiye's foreign trade performance, and the projected trade volume target of "1.2 trillion dollars within 10 years." Within the framework of the 2023 vision, Minister Yıldırım reiterated the goal of "becoming one of the world's ten largest economies" in the 100th year of the Republic. In this context, while the relationship between economic growth and ongoing transport investments was set out, the goals regarding "smart cities" within the framework of the 2023 vision were shared by Binali Yıldırım and Türk Telekom CEO Tahsin Yılmaz.