The Turkish Road Association (TRA) was established in accordance with the Act of “Republic of Turkey, The Council of Higher Education (CoHE)” under the chairmanship of General Directorate of Highways (GDH) in collaboration with Middle East Technical University of Ankara and Technical University of İstanbul. The aim is to bring together the members of universities, ministries and private sector who are concerned with roads and road transport and to support and strengthen the cooperation between them, and also to develop the coordination with the international organizations. The Central Office of TRA is located at the Headquarters of the General Directorate of Highways in Ankara.

TRA was established on January 25, 1990, by the members of government, universities, private sector and corporations in order to contribute to forming an adequate and secure road network and road transport in good harmony with other transportation systems. Their aim is betterment and development of road network and road transportation systems, and they believe that bringing their efforts together to reach this aim is more beneficial than their individual efforts.

The main activities of the Association can be summarized as follows:

• Supporting the development of roads and road transport in Turkey.
• Developing the coordination between related national and international organizations.
• Encouraging and providing the participation in the related national and international meetings.
• Following-up and supporting the latest developments in road techniques.
• Organizing meetings and seminars in order to evaluate related technical issues.
• Collecting, publishing and distributing all sorts of related information to its members in order to rise the road standards up to international level.