The name of the Organization is TURKISH ROAD ASSOCIATION (TRA). There are seven National Working Groups in the Association. TRA is an independent and open Association. The members are combined of individuals, organizations and companies of public and private sector. TRA published several books and some National Conferences are at planning phase.
The working groups and important events of the year 2010 are:1) Planning Working Group, 2) Road Construction Working Group, 3) Bridges and Tunnels Working Group, 4) Maintenance Working Group, 5) Traffic Safety Working Group, 6) Highway and the Environment Working Group, 7) Intelligent Transport Systems Working Group. The working groups organized various meetings, national conferences, exhibitions and published some books, reports and booklets.
In various lines of Istanbul city transportation net, construction of road, metro and passenger tunnels, stations have been progressed in 2010. Excavation and support of the underground structures have been carried out as TBM and NATM applications. Due to the historical nature of Istanbul archeological excavations and preservation works have been going on together with underground construction. Improvement of some structures at the ground and ground improvements beneath the ground were essential to minimize induced deformations due to underground construction facilities.In Marmaray Project construction has been continued in 2009 with some delays due to archeological works. It is planned to finish construction in 2011. Two current metro projects in Istanbul are Kadıköy-Kartal with 53 km tunnels and Taksim-Yenikapı with an approximate length of 5 km.
Design and construction of two main routes for speed railway (Eskişehir-Köseköy and Ankara-Sivas ) are continuing. They consist of 39 tunnels with length of 39 km and 7 tunnels with 10 km respectively.
In highways , number of tunnels in operation increased to 171 with an approximate length of 118 km. 49 tunnels ( 29 km) are under construction, design of 145 tunnels ( 36 km) are going on.