Public Transit Trivia
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50 free Public Transit trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Public transit is full of firsts, records and oddities, and this quiz collects the best of them. It starts with the world's first underground railway in 1863 London and the five-cent opening day of the New York Subway, then heads through Moscow's palatial stations, Kyiv's absurdly deep Arsenalna, Paris's Art Nouveau entrances, Budapest's UNESCO-listed line and Shanghai's 13-million-rider days. Above ground it covers the Shinkansen, Tokyo's white-gloved pushers, the origin of the word 'bus', London's Routemaster, San Francisco's cable cars and the referendum that saved them, Melbourne's trams, Wuppertal's hanging railway and the elephant that jumped out of it, and the bus rapid transit systems of Curitiba and Jakarta. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the individual systems, so the dates, depths and ridership figures are reliable enough for a transit-nerd showdown or a general knowledge round.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The world's first underground passenger line, opened in London in 1863, was called what?
The Metropolitan Railway
The Metropolitan Railway opened between Paddington and Farringdon on 10 January 1863, running steam locomotives through cut-and-cover tunnels; it was electrified in 1905.
Q 02What was the world's first electric, fully underground rapid transit line, opened in 1890?
The City & South London Railway
The City & South London Railway opened in 1890 between King William Street and Stockwell, with electric locomotives hauling carriages through deep tube tunnels.
Q 03Roughly what proportion of the London Underground actually runs underground?
45%
45%: only around 45% of the network's roughly 400 km runs in tunnel; much of the outer network is on the surface, despite the name.
Q 04How many stations does the London Underground have?
272
272 stations are served across 11 lines, handling up to five million passenger journeys a day.
Q 05Who designed the schematic London Tube map, later voted a national design icon?
Harry Beck
Harry Beck, an Underground draughtsman, drew the diagrammatic map in 1931 and it was first printed in 1933; Edward Johnston designed the typeface in 1916.
Q 06In what year was London's contactless Oyster card introduced?
2003
2003: the Oyster card launched on 30 June 2003, following the model of Hong Kong's Octopus card, introduced six years earlier.
Q 07Where does the nickname 'Tube' for the London Underground come from?
The circular deep-level tunnels
The circular deep-level tunnels, bored from 1890 onwards, carry small-profile trains and gave the nickname, unlike the older cut-and-cover lines near the surface.
Q 08Which London Underground line opened in 1979, taking over the Bakerloo's Stanmore branch?
Jubilee
The Jubilee line opened on 1 May 1979, named for Elizabeth II's 1977 Silver Jubilee; it took over the Stanmore branch from the Bakerloo line.
Q 09On what date did the New York City Subway open?
October 27, 1904
October 27, 1904: the first IRT line opened from City Hall to 145th Street, and more than 100,000 people rode it that first evening.
Q 10How many stations does the New York City Subway have?
472
472 stations are served by the system; the count drops to 423 if stations linked by transfer passageways are counted once.
Q 11What was the fare on the New York City Subway on its opening day in 1904?
5 cents
5 cents bought a ride on opening day in 1904, and the nickel fare survived until 1948, when it rose to a dime.
Q 12What percentage of New York City Subway track is actually above ground?
40%
40%: roughly 40% of the system's track is above ground, on elevated structures, embankments or open cuts, mostly in the outer boroughs.
Q 13Which 2012 storm flooded several of New York's underwater subway tunnels?
Hurricane Sandy
Hurricane Sandy's storm surge on 29 October 2012 flooded nine under-river tunnels, including the Montague and Canarsie tubes, which took years to repair.
Q 21Which city opened the European mainland's first electric underground railway, in 1896?
Budapest
Budapest's Line M1 opened on 2 May 1896 beneath Andrássy Avenue, inaugurated by Emperor Franz Joseph in Hungary's millennium year, and was the first electric underground railway on the European mainland.
Q 22Which city opened the first stretch of underground urban railway in Latin America, in 1913?
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires opened Line A of the Subte on 1 December 1913; its original Belgian-built wooden La Brugeoise cars stayed in service until 2013.
Q 23Shanghai's airport maglev runs from Pudong International Airport to which city-side station?
Longyang Road
Q 14The Moscow Metro's first line opened in what year?
1935
1935: the first line opened on 15 May 1935, running 11 km from Sokolniki to Park Kultury with 13 stations.
Q 15Which Moscow metro station hosted Stalin's 6 November 1941 speech during the Battle of Moscow?
Mayakovskaya
Mayakovskaya, opened in 1938 with stainless-steel arches and Deineka ceiling mosaics, hosted the revolution-anniversary meeting at which Stalin spoke on 6 November 1941; it doubled as an air-raid shelter.
Q 16Why is Kyiv's Arsenalna station, 105.5 metres down, so deep?
The high bank of the Dnipro River
The high bank of the Dnipro River forces the line to plunge from the plateau toward the riverside; Arsenalna's 105.5 m was the world's deepest until a Chongqing station surpassed it in the 2020s.
Q 17The Paris Métro's first line opened in July 1900 during which event?
The World's Fair
The World's Fair of 1900, the Exposition Universelle, set the deadline: Line 1 opened on 19 July 1900 between Porte de Vincennes and Porte Maillot.
Q 18Which architect designed the Art Nouveau entrances of the Paris Métro?
Hector Guimard
Hector Guimard designed the cast-iron Art Nouveau entrances from 1900; of 141 built, 86 survive and are protected as historic monuments.
Q 19Which numbered Paris Métro route, opened in 1998, was the network's first fully automatic one?
14
14: Line 14, the Météor project, opened on 15 October 1998 as the first driverless line, and the first entirely new line in 63 years.
Q 20Rubber-tyred metro trains, pioneered in Paris in the 1950s, were exported to which cities?
Montreal, Mexico City and Santiago
Montreal, Mexico City and Santiago all adopted the Paris rubber-tyred system, opening in 1966, 1969 and 1975 respectively; the tyres give quieter running and better grip on gradients.
Longyang Road is the city-side terminus of the 30 km maglev from Pudong International Airport, which began commercial service in 2004 and originally ran at up to 430 km/h.
Q 24As of 2021, which country had the most rapid transit systems in the world, with 40?
China
China had about 40 metro systems by 2021, more than any other country; most of them opened after 2000 in a building boom centred on provincial capitals.
Q 25In Germany and Austria, what is a city's underground rapid transit system called?
U-Bahn
U-Bahn, short for Untergrundbahn, is the underground metro; the S-Bahn is the suburban railway that complements it, as in Berlin, Hamburg and Munich.
Q 26In most of Britain, what does the word 'subway' mean?
A pedestrian underpass
A pedestrian underpass is what 'subway' means in British usage; Glasgow is the exception, since its circular underground railway is officially the Subway.
Q 27Which Hong Kong MTR line, opened in 1998, links Central to the airport?
Airport Express
Airport Express opened in July 1998 together with the new airport at Chek Lap Kok, running from Hong Kong station in Central to the terminal in about 24 minutes.
Q 28Which contactless transit card, launched in 1996, preceded Hong Kong's Octopus as the world's first?
Korea's Upass
Korea's Upass, introduced on Seoul buses in 1996, was the first contactless transit smart card; Hong Kong's Octopus followed in September 1997.
Q 29Japan's first Shinkansen line opened in 1964 shortly before which event?
The Tokyo Summer Olympics
The Tokyo Summer Olympics opened on 10 October 1964, nine days after the Tokaido Shinkansen began running between Tokyo and Shin-Osaka.
Q 30From 2013, the fastest Shinkansen services ran at what maximum operating speed?
320 km/h
320 km/h became the top operating speed in March 2013, when E5 trains reached it on the Tohoku Shinkansen between Utsunomiya and Morioka; the 300X test train hit 443 km/h in 1996.