50 Fun Facts About Public Transit

The world's first underground passenger line, opened in London in 1863, was called what?

The Metropolitan Railway ran steam locomotives through its tunnels; electric traction arrived in 1890.

What was the world's first electric, fully underground rapid transit line, opened in 1890?

Liverpool's Overhead Railway followed in 1893, designed for electric traction from the start.

Roughly what proportion of the London Underground actually runs underground?

Much of the outer network runs on the surface, despite the name.

How many stations does the London Underground have?

They handle up to five million passenger journeys a day across 11 lines.

Who designed the schematic London Tube map, later voted a national design icon?

Edward Johnston created the Underground's typeface in 1916; Beck's map dates from 1931.

In what year was London's contactless Oyster card introduced?

It followed the model of Hong Kong's Octopus card, launched six years earlier.

Where does the nickname 'Tube' for the London Underground come from?

Small-profile trains run through the tube-like deep tunnels, unlike the older cut-and-cover lines.

Which London Underground line, opened in 1979, honours Elizabeth II's 25th year on the throne?

It took over the Stanmore branch from the Bakerloo line.

On what date did the New York City Subway open?

Over 150,000 people paid the five-cent fare on the first day to ride from City Hall to 145th Street.

The New York City Subway has more stations than any other system in the world. How many?

That drops to 423 if stations linked by transfers are counted once.

What was the fare on the New York City Subway on its opening day in 1904?

The first line ran 9.1 miles from City Hall to 145th Street in Harlem.

What percentage of New York City Subway track is actually above ground?

New Yorkers still just call the whole thing 'the subway'.

Which 2012 storm flooded several of New York's underwater subway tunnels?

Repairs to the flooded tubes took years to complete.

The Moscow Metro's first line opened in what year?

The 11 km line had 13 stations; the network now has more than 300.

Which Moscow metro station housed the Council of Ministers and hosted Stalin's speeches during the 1941 siege?

Moscow's marble-and-chandelier stations have been likened to an 'artificial underground sun'.

Why is Kyiv's Arsenalna station, 105.5 metres down, so deep?

A station in Chongqing has since gone deeper.

The Paris Métro's first line opened in July 1900 during which event?

The Art Nouveau entrances went up at the same time; 86 survive.

Which architect designed the Art Nouveau entrances of the Paris Métro?

Eighty-six of his entrances still stand.

Which numbered Paris Métro route, opened in 1998, was the network's first fully automatic one?

It was also the first entirely new line in 63 years.

Rubber-tyred metro trains, pioneered in Paris in the 1950s, were exported to which cities?

The technology gives quieter running and better grip on gradients.

Which body listed Budapest's 1896 Line M1 metro as a World Heritage Site in 2002?

Emperor Franz Joseph inaugurated it in Hungary's millennium year.

Which city opened the first stretch of underground urban railway in Latin America, in 1913?

Line A still runs, and for decades kept its original wooden carriages.

Shanghai's metro opened in 1993. What daily ridership record did it set on 9 March 2024?

The network stretches more than 800 km across 19 lines.

As of 2021, which country had the most rapid transit systems in the world, with 40?

They ran on more than 4,500 km of track, and most 21st-century expansion has been in Asia.

In Germany and Austria, what is a city's underground rapid transit system called?

S-Bahn systems, the suburban railways, usually support them.

In most of Britain, what does the word 'subway' mean?

Glasgow is the exception: its underground railway is officially the Subway.

Hong Kong's MTR urban lines can carry roughly how many passengers per hour per direction?

A typical metro line elsewhere manages about 36,000.

Hong Kong's Octopus card, launched in 1997, was the world's second contactless transit card. Which was first?

By 2018 over 33 million Octopus cards were in circulation, used by 99 percent of residents.

Japan's first Shinkansen line opened in 1964 shortly before which event?

The Tokaido line links Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya and Osaka over 552.6 km.

What is the maximum operating speed on the fastest Shinkansen lines?

A conventional-rail test run has hit 443 km/h.

What are the white-gloved staff who pack passengers into Tokyo rush-hour trains called?

The word comes from osu, 'to push'; the first ones at a big Tokyo station were part-time students.

Which station, used by about 3.59 million people a day, holds the Guinness record as the world's busiest?

It has well over 200 exits.

The word 'bus' is short for a Latin word meaning what?

Omnibus was the name of the horse-drawn services Stanislas Baudry ran in western France and then Paris.

Stanislas Baudry, who ran the first omnibus service in 1823, owned a corn mill near which French city?

He moved to Paris and launched an omnibus service there in April 1828; London followed in 1829.

Which 1950s London bus design remains an icon of the city?

Its open rear platform let passengers hop on and off between stops.

The first successful cable car line, San Francisco's Clay Street Hill Railroad, opened in what year?

Andrew Smith Hallidie conceived it after watching a horsecar accident on wet cobblestones.

At what constant speed does the cable beneath San Francisco's cable car streets run?

It is the world's last manually operated cable car system; only three of the original 23 lines survive.

Who led the 1947 citizens' campaign that saved San Francisco's cable cars from being scrapped?

The referendum passed by 166,989 votes to 51,457.

Which Australian city has the largest urban tram network in the world?

Many cities scrapped their trams for buses in the mid-20th century; Melbourne kept and modernised its network.

What do most North Americans call the vehicle that Britons and Australians call a tram?

Frank Sprague's 1888 Richmond, Virginia system proved electric street railways could work at scale.

The Wuppertal Schwebebahn in Germany is the world's oldest example of what?

It runs 13.3 km at about 12 m above the River Wupper.

What kind of animal famously jumped from a Wuppertal Schwebebahn car into the river in 1950?

She was named Tuffi, Italian for 'waterdive', and suffered only minor injuries.

The world's first bus rapid transit system opened in 1974 in which Brazilian city?

Bogotá's TransMilenio refined the model in 2000, and Indonesia's capital now runs the largest BRT network.

Which city has the world's largest bus rapid transit network, with about 264 km of corridors?

TransJakarta uses dedicated busways and off-board fare payment across the Indonesian capital.

What is the typical minimum headway, or gap between trains, on a busy metro line?

Many systems settle on 120 seconds to leave room to recover from delays.

Platform screen doors are installed on some metro systems mainly to prevent what?

High platforms are dangerous because anyone who falls struggles to climb back up.

Which mathematician and philosopher developed Paris's 'five-sol coaches', the first city bus service, in 1662?

The service lasted only fifteen years, and regular bus transport did not reach London until July 1829.

The world's first passenger railway, horse-drawn from 1807, ran from Swansea to which seaside village?

The line ran on steam from 1877 and on 106-seat electric tramcars from 1929 before closing in 1960.

Volk's Electric Railway, the world's oldest operating electric tramway, runs along the seafront of which town?

Opened in 1883, the two-kilometre line was re-gauged the following year and is still carrying passengers.

Frank J. Sprague's pioneering electric streetcar system of 1888 opened in which US city?

Sprague went on to develop multiple-unit control, letting one motorman drive several coupled cars, which gave rise to the modern subway train.