Sertaç Canbolat

"I think that public transport vehicles are kind of a small petri dish for the city they operate in. You can find all kinds of people, it is always interesting to watch their interactions. It is more electrified and tense at business rush hours and there is more chatter during the day. Depending on your destination the crowd also changes. You can see youth pouring in from the buses, the ferries, the metro at the weekend to Kadıköy or Taksim. If it is a game night, this area will be filled with yellow-navy uniforms of Fenerbahçe fans. You can always tell if there is something important going on in the city if you watch the crowd on public transport carefully. 

"These are also public spaces where people come together. If you are using a route frequently, the driver becomes known to you and vice versa. I remember one day I was on the minibus and sat in the end row. You pay cash in minibusses and you hand the money to the passenger in front of you to be delivered all the way to the driver. So I took out my wallet and gave the money to the passenger in front of me asking him to pass it. He just turned to me and said “No, I am not talking to him!” It turns out he is a regular and one day they were chatting about politics and they got angry – and now they don’t talk to each other. It just felt unreal, he was cross with his minibus driver as if he was his best friend in high school!"