ASPHALT INDUSTRY
IN TURKEY-2021

Turkish Asphalt Contractors Association

ASMÜD

INTRODUCTION

The main usage areas of asphalt are roads in Turkey as well as all over the world. Asphalt is considered as a branch of industry with its production and paving equipment in a range from cold, warm and hot mixtures and it’s components including aggregate, bitumen & bituminous binders and additives to surface treatments. This document gives the information about road network, asphalt production and applications and the production capacity of the Turkish asphalt industry.

ROAD NETWORK IN TURKEY

Turkish highway network is critical importance to establish the transportation between Europe, Asia and Africa. The most preferred mode of transportation in Turkey is road, and the freight and passenger transportation rates are 89,2% and 89,9% respectively.

Flexible pavement is used in the road sectors. 95% of the highways are paved with asphalt. Rigid pavements are only used for airports, but taxi-routs and connection roads of airports are also paved with asphalt.

The road pavement is designed in accordance with AASHTO Mechanistic Method on the basis of total number of equivalent standard single axle load (ESAL) of 8,2 ton during project life. Allowable legal load is 10 tons for single axle load.

Roads are paved with asphalt concrete mixtures or surface dressing depending upon the class of the road and the volume of traffic carried. The percentage of heavy vehicles varies from 25% to 50% on the road.

The total length of highway which is under the control of General Directorate of Highways -KGM is 68.613 km given in the Table-1 by road classes and surface types and Figure- 1 gives the ratio of surface type.

Figure 1- Highways network by surface type ratio

Table 1- Highways network based on road and surface types, km - 01.01.2021

Ref: General Directorate of Highways statistic

In the context of dual carriageway action plan launched in 2003, the length of multilane divided highway network reached 28.195 km by June 2021.Within the scope of the National Transport Policies, major motorway projects have been initiated in the framework of the Build-Operate-Transfer System, which is a Public-Private Partnership model since 2010. Major projects such as İstanbul-Bursa-İzmir Motorway and Osmangazi Bridge, North Marmara Motorway and Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, Menemen-Aliağa-Çandarlı Motorway and Ankara-Niğde Motorway have been completed and open traffic. North Marmara Motorway (Kınalı- Odayeri section) Malkara-Çanakkale (included 1915 Çanakkale bridge), Aydın-Denizli motorway are under construction now.

Turkey is located in the center of the European–Asian international transport network connecting the countries of Europe, Central Asia, the Caucasian Republics, the countries of the Black Sea and even the Pacific countries of the Far East with each other. Some of the international highway routes and international transport projects in Turkey are International E-Roads Network, ESCAP, EATL, TEM, TEN_T.

Urban and Rural Roads are respectively under the control of Municipalities and Special Provincial Administration. Urban road network is not certainly known, but 14 - 23 million tons Hot Mix Asphalt - HMA is used for the pavements. Surface dressing, concrete and locked concrete parquet are also used in small cities and less populated areas. In the big cities, high performance asphalt mixtures such as stone mastic asphalt, modified asphalt concrete are also used on heavy traffic boulevards, as well as conventional asphalt concrete bituminous mixture.

The length of the rural road is 187.694 km as of the end of 2020, and their length and rate according to the surface type are given in Table-2. A total of 42% of the road is paved with asphalt, 35% of which is covered with surface dressing and the remaining 10% is HMA.

Table-2 Rural road network based on surface types, km - 01.01.2021

Ref: General Directorate of Local Administrations- Statistic

Surface dressing, used widely paving of state, provincial, urban and rural roads is applied in single or double layers on crushed stone granular base course.

Cold bituminous mixtures are used as a paving material on very low volume roads and maintenance purpose. In production of cold mixes, cut-back bituminous binders or bitumen emulsions are used.

ASPHALT IN FIGURES

ASMÜD collects data from road authorities, contractors, material and equipment suppliers to establish the statistic refers to asphalt production, types of asphalt applications, bituminous binders, recycling, number of companies and production plants in every year.

In the context, the production of hot-mix asphalt and cold bituminous mixtures, the application of surface dressing and the consumption of bitumen used by public agencies for the last 6 years are given in Table-3.

Table-3 The production of asphalt and consumption of bitumen for the last 5 years in Turkey

Turkish asphalt statistics are taken part in the "EAPA Asphalt in figures brochure prepared by the European Asphalt Pavement Association, the total production of hot and warm mix asphalt in Europe is given in Figure-2.

Ref: EAPA asphalt in figures

Figure-2 Total production of asphalt in EU-28 plus Norway, Switzerland and Turkey

As it is shown in the graph, Turkey became in 2017 and 2018 the number one asphalt producing country in Europe with a total production of 46 and 42 million ton respectively, followed by Germany. But in 2019, asphalt production was decreased sharply by 48%.

Asphalt concrete was the most used type of asphalt mixture in road applications. The percentage of this type used is over 95%. Asphalt concrete produced with polymer modified bitumen and stone mastic asphalt are used for heavy duty surface course and under the effect of high temperature

All of the HMA works which are being undertaken General Directorate of Highway- KGM and Department of Airports are implemented through contractors under contracts. In municipalities, almost all HMA works are contracted in metropolitan cities, whereas in small cities, the works are implemented with their own facilities.

Therefore the number of asphalt plants owned by the government agencies is limited. The distributions of the asphalt plants are given in Table-4.

Table-4 The number of asphalt plants in 2020

(1) General Directorate of Highways

Asphalt works in Turkey are executed by large and medium size general contracting companies which is given in the Table-5, some of which are the members of ASMÜD.

Table-5 Number of companies dealing with asphalt works - 2020

Production & Laying	349
Production only	11
Laying only	>100