A digitally mapped and coherently structured ferry network for Istanbul, developed through four years of independent research and systems analysis.
The project reimagines one of the world’s largest urban maritime networks as both public mobility infrastructure and a cultural navigation system — designed to make ferry travel more legible, accessible, and integrated into daily urban life.
Trademark-registered in TÜRKİYE and the United Kingdom, with EU registration in progress.
Open to institutional endorsement, sponsorship, and operational partnership.
Istanbul operates as one of the world’s most distinctive maritime cities. The Bosphorus, the Golden Horn, and the Sea of Marmara form a continuous transport corridor connecting continents, districts, and economic centres through water. The ferry network spans the city, links major urban nodes, and supports millions of journeys each year — efficient, low-emission, scalable.
For all that scale, the network has lacked a unified public-facing system. Routes, interchanges, and transfer points have lived in fragmented form across operators, signage, and passenger experience.
The system as a whole has been hard to read, even for residents.
The Istanbul Ferry Network project addresses that gap. It introduces a cognitive layer to the city’s maritime mobility — a unified map that brings together routes, interchanges, and transfer points into a single, legible structure. The result is a network that can be understood at a glance and used with confidence across the city.
This makes maritime mobility easier to choose, easier to repeat, and easier to embed in everyday decision-making. Daily usage strengthens system performance and long-term investment.
Originated and developed by York Rabe over four years of independent observation, route analysis, and iterative cartographic design.
Digital format developed in collaboration with French cartographer Nathan Kaufmann.
A unified cartographic platform of Istanbul’s ferry network, structured as a multi-layered public utility: print map, digital application, journey planner, and interactive network navigation.
Istanbul, TÜRKİYE.
The platform covers the full extent of the city’s ferry system across the Bosphorus, the Golden Horn, and the Sea of Marmara.
Originated 2022. Cartographic framework completed 2025. Public launch and digital phase scheduled for 2026, with rollout supported by a coordinated communications and partnership programme.
What people can see, they use.
Istanbul’s ferry network already carries 65m journeys a year, yet much of its scale remains invisible in everyday urban life. By making the system clearer, more legible, and easier to navigate, Istanbul Ferry Network aims to increase awareness, strengthen maritime mobility, and support a lower-stress, lower-emission city.
Cartography, wayfinding, digital navigation, and civic brand design integrated into a single public-facing mobility system.
Structured across print mapping, digital applications, journey planning, signage logic, and network visualisation — designed to operate coherently across operators, routes, and urban movement patterns.
A maritime city deserves a maritime mobility system that is legible, beautiful, and operationally coherent.
Cities that have invested in clear, unified mobility systems have seen measurable shifts in passenger behaviour and transport mode share. London’s Tube map, Paris’s RATP, and Tokyo’s transit networks each demonstrate that legibility is itself an instrument of public policy — a network that is easy to read becomes a network that is easy to use.
Istanbul’s ferry system carries roughly 65 million passenger journeys each year across operators. The platform is positioned to capture incremental usage uplift across a base of this scale: a 2.5% lift represents approximately 1.6 million additional annual sessions; a 5% lift, 3.25 million; an 8% lift, 5.2 million. Each session is a high-intent interaction within an established transport behaviour.
The project is positioned as both a public service and a cultural infrastructure project — a permanent asset for the city that combines daily utility with long-term symbolic value.
For institutional and government partners. Strategic alignment, public endorsement, and integration with the city’s wider mobility ecosystem.
For corporate and category sponsors. Founding partner, category, and integrated communications partnerships at launch and across the platform’s first operating cycle.
For operational and strategic partners across technology, distribution, content, and user experience. The platform welcomes long-term collaborations spanning digital infrastructure, integration, mapping, content, hospitality, and network visibility.
A curated package on the network architecture, the cartographic design, the launch programme, and the engagement pathways.
Sent to your inbox following a brief form submission.
Further material shared under non-disclosure agreement.
