The World’s Busiest Metro Systems And Then There Is Broadway
The world’s busiest metro’s, mostly operating in subways, in an ascending order.
By comparison, the 68.6 km. SkyTrain mini-metro system carries a mere 361,500 passenger a day and TransLink’s ridership numbers are guesstimates with actual ridership about 10% to 15% lower.
BC’s population is now just over 4.61 million and all the below metro systems, except for Paris and Mexico city carry more than the entire population of BC daily! Seoul’s metro system carries more customers than the combined population of BC, Alberta, and Saskatchewan!
The proposed Broadway subway is a mere pygmy when compared to the great metro systems elsewhere and the small comparative ridership will mean massive subsidies will have to made to operate the subway and the monies for those subsidies will have to come from other areas of TransLink’s fragile transit system; most likely south of the Fraser..
Ai??
Broadway, just does not have the ridership or potential ridership
to justify a $3 billion+ subway.
Paris
Daily ridership: 4.2 million
The oldest metro system to appear on this list, the Paris MAi??tro opened in the year 1900, and has today grown to include more than 300 stations across the great French city. The least expensive single ride ticket for the Paris subway, which allows you to travel one zone of the massive system, costs about $2.43.
Mexico City
Daily ridership: 4.4 million
Only one other North American metro system can claim to be busier than that of Mexico City, where 12 lines service nearly 200 stations across the metropolis of the sprawling town. A single fare ticket onboard the Mexico City Metro costs five pesos, which, for a Canadian rider visiting Mexico, would be a steal. Five pesos equals about 42 cents, making the subway in Mexico City among the world’s least expensive rides.
Hong Kong
Daily ridership: 5.2 million
Hong Kong’s rapid transit system has only been open since 1979 — for reference: the CN Tower was completed in 1976 — yet it has already grown to include some 218 km of track, stretching to more than 150 stations. Hong Kong may be a pricy place to live, but public transit use is reasonably priced. A full day pass aboard the MTR costs less than $8.
New York
Daily ridership: 5.5 million
North America’s busiest subway system is also surely the continent’s most notable. In the Big Apple, 5.5 million riders churn through the famous metro turnstiles each weekday; even on weekends, nearly six million total riders use the subway each Saturday and Sunday in New York City. A single ride ticket on the New York metro costs $2.75 as a base fare.
Guangzhou
Daily ridership: 5.6 million
The first of three Chinese entrants on this list, the Guangzhou Metro is a baby in the metro world. The system opened in 1997 — even in Quebec it couldn’t yet legally order a beer — though despite its young age the transit outfit has ballooned to meet demand. Already busier than the metro systems in major cities like New York, London and Paris, the Guangzhou Metro, where the minimum single ride fare amounts to just 36 cents, accommodates annual ridership in excess of two billion.
Tokyo
Daily ridership: 6.4 million
The oldest of all the Asian metro systems to appear here, Tokyo’s subway opened in 1927 and has undergone countless extensions, the latest in 2008. Now there are some 180 stations in service in the Japanese capital, covering nearly 200 km of track. The minimum single ride fare on the Tokyo Metro comes to about $1.75.
Moscow
Daily ridership: 6.7 million
Europe’s busiest metro is not in Paris, nor is it in London or Berlin. Instead, Moscow reigns subway supreme, boasting 6.7 million daily riders (on one record-setting day in 2012, some 9.3 million riders passed through the system’s turnstiles). A single ride on Moscow’s subway comes cheap; the minimum fare comes to about $1.17 per ticket.
Shanghai
Daily ridership: 6.9 million
The largest metro system on this list by a wide margin, Shanghai’s metro snakes through the Chinese city with an incredible reach. With track length of 538 km, Shanghai’s subway system is more than double that of Paris, and more than 70 km longer than the second-largest metro system in the world. A full day pass on the Shanghai Metro costs just $3.25, nearly the single ride cost of subway fare in Toronto.
Beijing
Daily ridership: 9.75 million
A massive jump in daily ridership from third to second place on this list, Beijing’s metro system boasts nearly 10 million customers per day, a 42 per cent hike over the numbers aboard the Shanghai Metro, featured on the previous slide of this gallery. The Beijing Subway is huge — in total, there are 19 subway lines in its network — and incredibly cheap to ride. The base single ride fare works out to just 36 cents.
Seoul
The world’s busiest metro system is not the largest (that would be the Shanghai Metro, at 538 km of track length), nor does it have the most total stations (that would be New York City, with 421). Yet Seoul’s subway is always packed, featuring nearly 10 million daily riders and annual ridership of some 2.6 billion. A base single ride fare onboard the Seoul Subway costs $1.23.
The public transit system in Vancouver should be privatised so that each operating company would be thinking of making the most profits, not wasting money on unnecessary infrastructure. Variable fare pricing is a good ticketing method, based on the number of km travelled.
Hey Zwei,
I have been a little busy lately and I have a question. Have Translink gone any further in the planning process for the Broadway Line since I did my little post on the reason why I don’t think there was enough ridership for a below grade right of way? If not, Translink must be waiting out their little funding or lack funding issue first. If they have Zwei, could you tell me what they have officially said about it or a hint about any upcoming public meetings or further planning processes?
@Sean,
Zonal or any form of distance based pricing should not be used, especially in a North American context unless the area covered is truly large, like a Greater Toronto or Greater New York. It may not seem like it but Greater Vancouver is quite small in comparison to other large North American transit service areas There are several reasons that have been noted historically that these type of fare systems actually do damage. The people who most need transit generally have to travel the farthest distances. Choice riders who travel the longer distances usually find another way to go if they don’t want to pay a fortune for the least amount of transit service (usually in the outer zones if its a zonal fare system or have to travel greatest distances in a distance based fare system). What usually happens in times of very slow or no economic growth is that, transit ridership drops, keeping a zonal or distance based system will increase the loss ridership. It is also by far the most difficult and costly to administer. A flat fare structure though not perfect, has the least amount of problems associated with it. If you can come up with an answer to this problem you will make a fortune.
Simply saying we should privatize the whole thing because private industry is always more efficient the a public body is simply being lazy. In most circumstances the private companies offer worst service and are the least likely to innovate when it comes to offering mass transit. The drive to privatize does drop costs but usually has almost never led to better service for the customer. It usually gets a lot worse. This is because the need to maintain cost and or profit margins always triumphs over innovation! The reason we have public transit today is because the for profit operations (late 19th to mid 20th century period) in North America all eventually went out of business. Their problems arouse mostly because paying dividends became more important than putting money back into transit operation. Even when the problem became acute as the systems started to age and they still paid investors first before sinking money into maintenance. What usually followed was the company abandoning the service at the end of a contract and the public picking up the pieces afterwards.
Even today, companies that offer municipalities to operate the transit service always state that, over the length of these operating contracts money for the “service charges” must be paid first and will not be transferred to supplying transit operations. They also generally state that, if the company comes into financial trouble money from the municipality can and will be transferred to supply funds to pay company bills and costs first before being put into transit operations. Extra costs will then be charged to the municipality to maintain transit service. The most amazing thing is that, most municipalities actually sign these contracts.
Zwei replies: TransLink and the City of Vancouver are going full speed ahead planning for a Broadway subway. land is being assembled at proposed stations and it seems that all the Cov and TransLink are waiting for is the referendum to raise the cash for the line.
Zwei had correspondence with an American transit type (who wishes to remain anonymous) who claimed that SNC has already been promised the subway contract to build the subway! SNC is also behind the environmental study that has OK’ed American coal trains to MacQuarie owned Surrey docks. The Arbutus Corridor has been in the news all summer leaving subway planning out of the news.
There will be no public meetings as both TransLink and the Cov have concluded their “dog and pony shows”
@HAC, I’m crossing my fingers that Gregor doesn’t get elected one more time, and the BW subway becomes history. There are lots of good candidates running this time and people are fed up with Gregor the socialist fascist simpleton (what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine, too).
http://themainlander.com/2014/03/07/bob-rennies-25000-lunch-why-vancouver-is-unaffordable/
On BW, from 6 am to 9 am (busiest time) you only have 1,477 pph (arriving at UBC). Turnover on buses along BW is about three times, so you only have about 4,431 boardings per hour on the main bus routes on BW. If TransLink didn’t operate buses every 2 minutes on the 99 route and every 10 minutes on parallel routes, the 99 route would be just another route. The subway only replaces the 99 route but adds more buses to get people to the subway. This is stupid. But whatever, I’m growing tired of pointing it out here.
Personally, in my opinion, universities and colleges (SFU, BCIT and UBC) are the prime destinations for rail transit: tram transit which can be built in about 18 months or less and doesn’t require any taxes. That is, each tram replaces about six buses and pays for itself from the reduction in operating expenses in a couple of decades.
Trams also make transit faster for most users who only travel short distances. If you build trams, you will motivate a shift from long distance travel to short distance travel to urbanize Vancouver evenly over the entire city and increase density in Vancouver more: rather than more sprawl in Surrey (far from Vancouver) for more condo induced sprawl spurred on by the s-train (Marchetti effect)… refer to…
http://www.condosurrey.com/fleetwood-gardens-16068-83-avenue-surrey
http://www.railforthevalley.com/latest-news/zweisystem/eric-chriss-study-not-having-transit-is-more-environmentally-sustainable-than-having-transit-in-vancouver/
Universities by their nature are not at their busiest between 6-9am however, the afternoon rush hour and the relatively high numbers afterwards conform to what most Canadian and American Universities experience. I think its amazing that when you look at the high evening numbers that Translink drops its service to such a great degree during that time period. Might explain some of that crowding!
Zwei replies: I have always said that the overcrowding on the B-Line is a management problem (not providing the service to match demand), rather than a “capacity” problem.
@Havecow,
I don’t know about all universities – in Metro-Vancouver, vehicle traffic including transit traffic to UBC follows a binomial distribution and the most commuting occurs at about 9 am in the morning. If you haven’t seen my report titled “TransLink not in Service” and are curious, maybe Zwei can send it to you. It includes the binomial distribution from TransLink. Refer to Figure 2.5 for UBC commuting which also shows that the greatest commuting occurs in the morning:
http://planning.ubc.ca/sites/planning.ubc.ca/files/documents/transportation/reports/Fall-2012-Transportation-Status-Report-25-Mar-13.pdf
Even so, bus traffic on Broadway in the afternoon is greater than in the morning. This is due to TransLink hampering bus service on West 16th Avenue (routes 25 and 33) to funnel more people down Broadway for TransLink to show everyone how awesome the “express” 99 B-line is at increasing ridership and how awesome the planners at TransLink are!
I’m 100% sure that if TransLink offered regular two minute service on West 16th Avenue or on Broadway for the No. 9 trolleybus route, the demand for the two minute crowded 99 express would drop, by lots. But wait, then TransLink wouldn’t be so awesome and wouldn’t be able to make a case for the subway down Broadway to fix the over crowding which the “planners” at TransLink have purposely created on the 99 “express”.
Last time that I took transit was on the regular No. 9 and the “express” No. 99 (stopping at all the traffic lights) trailed the “slow” No. 9 all the way down Broadway. Some express service, that “fast” 99 is when it’s on the road in real traffic conditions.
As Zwei pointed out, the overcrowding on the 99 route is carefully orchestrated by TransLink. TransLink only requires two to three additional buses to mitigate overcrowding on the 99 route during peak hours (there is plenty of capacity at 2 am). We have almost 50% of all bus traffic on Broadway. That’s insane and intentional. I don’t know any city anywhere that puts residents through hell to make a case for a subway – except here – more on that later…