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 ran steam locomotives through its tunnels; electric traction arrived in 1890.
Q 02What was the world's first electric, fully underground rapid transit line, opened in 1890?
The City & South London Railway
Liverpool's Overhead Railway followed in 1893, designed for electric traction from the start.
Q 03Roughly what proportion of the London Underground actually runs underground?
45%
Much of the outer network runs on the surface, despite the name.
Q 04How many stations does the London Underground have?
272
They handle up to five million passenger journeys a day across 11 lines.
Q 05Who designed the schematic London Tube map, later voted a national design icon?
Harry Beck
Edward Johnston created the Underground's typeface in 1916; Beck's map dates from 1931.
Q 06In what year was London's contactless Oyster card introduced?
2003
It followed the model of Hong Kong's Octopus card, launched six years earlier.
Q 07Where does the nickname 'Tube' for the London Underground come from?
The circular deep-level tunnels
Small-profile trains run through the tube-like deep tunnels, unlike the older cut-and-cover lines.
Q 08Which London Underground line, opened in 1979, honours Elizabeth II's 25th year on the throne?
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
Over 150,000 people paid the five-cent fare on the first day to ride from City Hall to 145th Street.
Q 10The New York City Subway has more stations than any other system in the world. How many?
472
That drops to 423 if stations linked by transfers are counted once.
Q 11What was the fare on the New York City Subway on its opening day in 1904?
5 cents
The first line ran 9.1 miles from City Hall to 145th Street in Harlem.
Q 12What percentage of New York City Subway track is actually above ground?
40%
New Yorkers still just call the whole thing 'the subway'.
Q 13Which 2012 storm flooded several of New York's underwater subway tunnels?
Hurricane Sandy
Repairs to the flooded tubes took years to complete.
Q 14The Moscow Metro's first line opened in what year?
Q 21Which body listed Budapest's 1896 Line M1 metro as a World Heritage Site in 2002?
UNESCO
Emperor Franz Joseph inaugurated it in Hungary's millennium year.
Q 22Which city opened the first stretch of underground urban railway in Latin America, in 1913?
Buenos Aires
Line A still runs, and for decades kept its original wooden carriages.
Q 23Shanghai's metro opened in 1993. What daily ridership record did it set on 9 March 2024?
13.39 million rides
The network stretches more than 800 km across 19 lines.
1935
The 11 km line had 13 stations; the network now has more than 300.
Q 15Which Moscow metro station housed the Council of Ministers and hosted Stalin's speeches during the 1941 siege?
Mayakovskaya
Moscow's marble-and-chandelier stations have been likened to an 'artificial underground sun'.
Q 16Why is Kyiv's Arsenalna station, 105.5 metres down, so deep?
The high bank of the Dnipro River
A station in Chongqing has since gone deeper.
Q 17The Paris Métro's first line opened in July 1900 during which event?
The World's Fair
The Art Nouveau entrances went up at the same time; 86 survive.
Q 18Which architect designed the Art Nouveau entrances of the Paris Métro?
Hector Guimard
Eighty-six of his entrances still stand.
Q 19Which numbered Paris Métro route, opened in 1998, was the network's first fully automatic one?
14
It was also 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
The technology gives quieter running and better grip on gradients.
Q 24As of 2021, which country had the most rapid transit systems in the world, with 40?
China
They ran on more than 4,500 km of track, and most 21st-century expansion has been in Asia.
Q 25In Germany and Austria, what is a city's underground rapid transit system called?
U-Bahn
S-Bahn systems, the suburban railways, usually support them.
Q 26In most of Britain, what does the word 'subway' mean?
A pedestrian underpass
Glasgow is the exception: its underground railway is officially the Subway.
Q 27Hong Kong's MTR urban lines can carry roughly how many passengers per hour per direction?
75,000 to 85,000
A typical metro line elsewhere manages about 36,000.
Q 28Hong Kong's Octopus card, launched in 1997, was the world's second contactless transit card. Which was first?
Korea's Upass
By 2018 over 33 million Octopus cards were in circulation, used by 99 percent of residents.
Q 29Japan's first Shinkansen line opened in 1964 shortly before which event?
The Tokyo Summer Olympics
The Tokaido line links Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya and Osaka over 552.6 km.
Q 30What is the maximum operating speed on the fastest Shinkansen lines?
320 km/h
A conventional-rail test run has hit 443 km/h.