Public Transportation in Istanbul

During my time in Istanbul, I was only able to ride on public transportation one half-day. But at least I accomplished what I had come to do: buy an akbil rechargeable battery token (see the photo of an orange ticket) and then ride the modern tram and the Tunel funiculaire (Karakoy - Tunel), together with the locals.

You buy a battery-like token, known as an Akbil, at one of the booths pictured above (or other mobile stands like the one I just happened to find at one of the back entrances of the Grand Bazaar) for 6 Turkish Lira ($4, refundable), charge it up with as much or as little as you like (I did 5 Lira, the equivalent of four or five short rides), and you're on your way.

As you go through a turnstile, instead of feeding a ticket like you do in JR stations in Japan or the BART in San Francisco, you instead press the battery side of the token up against the red button located next to the left of the LCD display on the turnstile. Your credit is deducted and the display shows the credit remaining (I think). It's an incredibly low-tech system, but it works well, except when the battery doesn't make contact with the red button reader on the turnstile.

The Akbil is useable on all the various means of transport in Istanbul: buses, metro (which I didn't get to ride on here), tram, funiculaire, and even the "old-style" tram, which I feature here again (it's the one with the children hanging on the end of it).

I recommend that you try buying an Akbil if you can. It's fun to go local!

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LINKS:

An excellent write-up of the Akbil, and the site where I heard about this and got interested in getting one and using it, to see how the technology works:

http://www.turkeytravelplanner.com/go/Istanbul/Transport/Akbil.html