Getting from A to B isn’t always easy in busy cities, but underground train systems make the whole process far more simple. Road traffic can suffocate the streets for car drivers, but it’s usually far speedier to go underneath the metropolis. Here are some of the world’s most impressive metro systems.
London Underground
The oldest underground railway mass transportation system in the world, London’s Tube was first opened in the 1860s. At the time it consisted of just a handful of stations, but these days there are 270 of them in total, and eleven separate lines. On weekdays the Tube is used by over 3.4 million passengers, and the addition of the driverless Docklands Light Railway has made life so much easier for the city’s commuters.
New York City Subway
With a daily passenger throughput of over five million and more than 800 miles of track, the subway system in the Big Apple remains a crucial part of daily life for New Yorkers. The first section of the subway was opened in 1904, and there are now well over 400 stations in operation. To the city’s great credit, crime, which was highly prevalent at one time on the subway, has been dropping steadily since the early 1990s.
Paris Metro
In Europe, only Moscow has a busier network, with the 301 stations handling more than 4.5 million Parisian commuters on a daily basis. The last train of the day on each line is called the balai (broom), because it is used to sweep up the last of that day’s passengers. Metro is short for metropolitain.
Tokyo Subway
The underground rail network in Japan’s capital is the most widely used in the whole world. On weekdays, a staggering 8.7 million people travel to work on the chikatetsu, or subway. Operations began on the system in 1927, and there are now 13 high-speed lines for commuters to choose from (there are more than 270 stations in all). Despite it being the most used network in the world, most Japanese commuters still use the over ground railway system. In fact, less than a quarter of commuters who travel into Tokyo use the chikatetsu? Amazingly, it’s estimated that around 40 million people commute into the Japanese capital every day.
