Antalya to Alanya Highway: What the 36 Minute Travel Time Actually Covers

The Antalya to Alanya highway is a toll motorway under construction between Serik and Alanya in Antalya province, and the widely repeated 36 minute figure measures its 84 km main trunk driven at the 140 km/h design speed, not a trip between the two city centres. That trunk runs from Serik Kavşağı to Alanya Batı Kavşağı north of Konaklı, so Antalya city centre, Antalya Airport and Alanya city centre all sit outside the motorway and stay on the existing D-400 state road. The Environmental and Social Impact Assessment published in September 2025 puts the whole project at 117.8 km, against the 122 km that ministry statements and press coverage still use, and it contains no numerical travel time claim at all. Construction began with a groundbreaking on 25 July 2025 and reached 30% physical progress by August 2026, with the assessment schedule running work to October 2028 and ministry statements targeting May 2028. The motorway operates as an access-controlled toll road with HGS (Hızlı Geçiş Sistemi, the electronic toll transponder system) at every entry and exit, under a build-operate-transfer contract that gives the operator a 12 year operating period. Seven access junctions serve the route, and the four between Taşağıl and Konaklı change access most, because western Alanya and inland Manavgat gain a motorway entrance they do not have today.

What is the Antalya to Alanya highway?

The Antalya to Alanya highway is a controlled-access toll motorway running 84 km between Serik and Alanya, built under Turkey's build-operate-transfer law and owned by KGM (Karayolları Genel Müdürlüğü, the General Directorate of Highways). The motorway forms one of two sub-projects that together make up the wider Afyonkarahisar to Alanya Motorway. The Afyonkarahisar to Serik half of that corridor remains at planning stage, which means the Serik to Alanya section opens as a standalone road rather than as part of a completed motorway chain.

KGM tendered the project under Law 3996, the statute governing build-operate-transfer investments. Limak İnşaat submitted the winning bid on 15 December 2023 at 76.7 billion lira. KGM signed the contract with the project company, Antalya Alanya Otoyolu İnşaat Yatırım ve İşletme A.Ş., on 14 October 2024, and Limak İnşaat holds the construction contractor role.

Design figures differ depending on which document reports them. The Environmental and Social Impact Assessment prepared by ENCON Çevre Danışmanlık and published in September 2025 records a total of 117.8 km, made up of 84 km of main motorway and 33.8 km of connection roads, measured between chainage Km 52+000 and Km 136+000. Ministry and contractor communications continue to cite 122 km, made up of the same 84 km trunk plus 38 km of connection roads. Both sources agree on the trunk itself, and Limak İnşaat specifies a 140 km/h design speed on the main motorway and 110 km/h on the connection roads.

Will the drive from Antalya to Alanya really take 36 minutes?

No. The 36 minute figure is the running time of the 84 km trunk at its 140 km/h design speed, and 84 divided by 140 gives exactly 0.6 hours. That arithmetic reproduces the published number to the minute, which identifies what the figure measures. The comparison usually placed beside it, a current journey of 2.5 hours, measures something different: a centre to centre trip on the D-400 through built-up areas.

The Environmental and Social Impact Assessment, the document prepared for the project's international lenders, states that the motorway shortens travel times and improves road safety. The assessment attaches no number to that statement anywhere in its non-technical summary. The 36 minute figure appears in Transport and Infrastructure Ministry statements and in the press coverage that followed them.

Where does the 36 minute figure start and end?

The 84 km trunk starts at Serik Kavşağı and ends at Alanya Batı Kavşağı, north of Konaklı. Serik is a district roughly 40 km east of Antalya city centre, and Konaklı is a neighbourhood on the coast west of Alanya city centre. Neither endpoint sits in a city centre.

The Environmental and Social Impact Assessment describes the connection explicitly, recording that the motorway joins the D-400 state road at Serik and terminates at the Alanya junction, operating independently of external infrastructure. Antalya Airport lies about 30 km west of Serik, on the far side of the motorway's western end.

What does the full journey actually look like?

The motorway covers 84 km of a centre to centre journey of roughly 135 km, which leaves about 50 km on the D-400 and on city streets at either end. Those 50 km carry no motorway alternative when the Serik to Alanya section opens.

A driver travelling centre to centre spends 36 minutes on the motorway and covers the remaining 50 km at ordinary road speeds. The result cuts today's journey substantially without reaching 36 minutes overall. A driver starting from Antalya Airport rather than the city centre skips part of the western leg, because the airport sits east of Antalya city centre and closer to Serik.

Which junctions does the Antalya to Alanya highway have?

The motorway carries seven access junctions between Serik and Alanya. The junction distances published on the KGM route map sum to 84 km, matching the trunk length recorded in the project documents.

The longest gap, 18 km between Manavgat Kavşağı and Manavgat Doğu Kavşağı, spans the Manavgat river plain. The shortest, 4 km, places the eastern terminus just past the Konaklı entrance. Service areas sit at 20 to 50 km intervals along the route, and maintenance centres at 50 to 60 km intervals, with one maintenance and operations centre planned near Km 64+500 in the Taşağıl neighbourhood of Manavgat.

When does the Antalya to Alanya highway open?

The Environmental and Social Impact Assessment schedules construction through to October 2028, while Transport and Infrastructure Ministry statements target May 2028. The project reached 30% physical progress in August 2026, roughly 13 months after the groundbreaking.

The financing closed at 1.7 billion euros in October 2025, raised from 14 banks and financial institutions, with 87% of the credit coming from international lenders and demand reaching 2.1 times the amount offered. The assessment plans expropriation work from October 2024 to April 2026, overlapping the construction phase that runs from October 2024 to October 2028. A 2028 opening also falls outside the period covered by current market projections, which run to 2027 in the Alanya property market forecast for 2026 and 2027.

Will the Antalya to Alanya highway be a toll road?

Yes. The motorway functions as an access-controlled route with toll collection stations equipped with HGS infrastructure at every entry and exit point. The Environmental and Social Impact Assessment records that toll collection runs through electronic systems, and the build-operate-transfer structure makes tolling the mechanism by which the operator recovers its investment.

The contract sets a three year construction period followed by a 12 year operating period. At the end of that period the operator transfers the motorway to KGM in fully working and debt-free condition, and the operator carries maintenance responsibility until then, with major repairs expected every 10 years.

The December 2023 tender set a passage rate of 0.0598 euro per kilometre. Applied to the 84 km trunk, that tender rate works out at roughly 5 euros for a car driving the full length. KGM publishes actual tariffs at opening rather than at tender, and Turkish motorway tolls are revised periodically, so the rate charged in 2028 will differ from the tender parameter.

Which parts of the coast does the motorway change most?

The four junctions between Taşağıl and Konaklı deliver the largest change, because inland Manavgat and western Alanya gain motorway access where none exists today. Areas east of Alanya city centre gain far less, and the reason is geography rather than distance.

Konaklı, a coastal neighbourhood in the Alanya district of Antalya province, sits immediately south of the eastern terminus. Avsallar and İncekum lie close to the same end of the route, both west of Alanya city centre. The Environmental and Social Impact Assessment places one of the project's three construction camps near Km 124+300 in Avsallar and İncekum. Mahmutlar, Kestel, Oba and Tosmur sit east of Alanya city centre, so a driver reaching them from the motorway crosses Alanya city centre on the D-400 first. Western Alanya captures the access gain directly. Eastern Alanya captures it only after the slowest part of the existing journey. Which of those western neighbourhoods buyers are actually moving into is a separate question, set out in Alanya's emerging investment neighbourhoods.

The assessment names the specific congestion problem the motorway addresses. The D-400 runs directly through settlements including Aksu, Serik and Manavgat, which gives the road urban traffic characteristics and lowers travel speeds. Heavy traffic between Antalya Airport and the tourist centres along the coast worsens the effect. Separating intercity traffic from local traffic is the stated objective.

Why do published figures for the motorway differ?

The design changed after the tender, so 2024 announcements no longer match the 2025 assessment. The Environmental and Social Impact Assessment explains the mechanism directly: after the build-operate-transfer tender and the appointment of the project company, the sponsor carried out further work to optimise the route and the locations, numbers and lengths of viaducts, junctions, overpasses, underpasses and culverts. A third round of revisions followed detailed field surveys that identified cultural heritage sites along the route.

The September 2025 assessment lists 16 viaducts, 22 bridges, 305 culverts, 56 overpasses, 43 underpasses and 5 tunnels. Press coverage in August 2026 reported 5 tunnels totalling 4,365 m and 16 viaducts totalling 5,966 m, which matches the assessment counts rather than the 2024 figures of 8 tunnels and 19 viaducts.

Reported annual savings moved in the same period. Ministry material at the 2024 signing cited 6.6 billion lira. Coverage on 17 August 2026 cited 17.7 billion lira, and coverage on 25 August 2026 cited 23.9 billion lira. Two of those figures sit eight days apart and differ by a third, so the lira savings number carries little comparative weight. The 47,000 tonne annual carbon reduction figure stayed unchanged across all three announcements.

What happens to land on the motorway route?

KGM acquires the route land under Turkey's expropriation law, and the corridor crosses working farmland across the Serik, Manavgat and Alanya districts. The Transport and Infrastructure Ministry issued public benefit decision 2023/371 on 28 November 2023. Presidential Decision 9708, authorising acele kamulaştırma (urgent expropriation) of certain parcels under Article 27 of Expropriation Law 2942, appeared in the Resmî Gazete on 30 March 2025 under issue 32857.

KGM gives priority to agreed purchase under Article 8 of the same law rather than to the urgent procedure. The authority began issuing settlement invitations to rights holders and shareholders, including heirs, in February 2025, and applies Article 27 only where those negotiations fail or the holder does not participate. Expropriation advances parcel by parcel as budget allows.

The route crosses fertile plains given over to open-field agriculture, orchards and greenhouse cultivation, with tomato, strawberry and pepper production in Serik and irrigated cultivation on the Manavgat river plain. A Resettlement Action Plan prepared to IFC Performance Standard 5 covers the affected population, based on field work that included interviews with the muhtars (elected neighbourhood heads) of 34 affected neighbourhoods, household surveys in 196 homes, livelihood surveys with more than 380 households and interviews with 32 business owners.