The New York City Subway is often cited as the most complex, featuring 472 stations and 161+ intricate, non-planar connections, pushing cognitive mapping limits. However, Tokyo’s subway is considered more extensive and complex for navigation due to its multi-operator structure, while Chongqing is deemed the most structurally challenging.
The researchers found that the New York City subway map was the most complex of the list, with a total of 161 total possible connections – making it the closest to their predetermined cognitive limit of 250. In pursuit were metros in Paris with 78 connections, Tokyo with 56, and London with 48.
The Paris metro network consistently ranks at the pinnacle of global metro complexities. Navigating this intricate system proves challenging for both users and cartographers alike. Its complexity presents a formidable task for accurate mapping and design.
China has the largest and most extensive metro network in the world. As of December 2024, China's urban rail transit system stretched over 11,000km, comprising more than 310 metro lines in at least 47 cities.
Who has the deepest subway system? Hongyancun station on Line 9 of Chongqing Rail Transit, China, holds the title of the deepest metro station in the world with its deepest point at 116 meters below ground. Opened in 2022 in Yuzhong District, it surpassed Kyiv's Arsenalna station's previous record.
The Purple Line is aligned east to southwest in Namma Metro and connects Whitefield (Kadugodi) in the east with Challaghatta in the southwest is one of the slowest metro in India taking around 1 hour 29 mins to transverse the distance of 43.35 Km with the average speed of 29 Km/h.
THE world's fastest metro system train is the Maglev or Transrapid which runs by way of magnetic levitation on the Longyang Road to Pudong International Airport line of the Shanghai Metro in China.
The country's struggle to develop high-speed rail is often blamed on political indecision, public opposition, and spiraling costs. High land acquisition, labour, and material costs all drive cost overruns.
Moscow metro construction started in 1930-s. At that time geological surveys were conducted and it appeared that the nature of the soil would make tunneling particularly difficult in Moscow. Many underground rivers were discovered. It was safer to dig tunnels deep under the ground level.
Video Transcript: The Tokyo Metro System is famous for being one of the cleanest subway systems in the world. Today they are cleaning the train cars at the ISA rail yard which they do every 15 days. The cleaners take careful measures to ensure each nook and cranny is cleaned.
This is because 191st Street is under nearly the highest point on the island of Manhattan, deep in the Washington Heights Mine Tunnel, while Dyckman Street runs along a deep valley almost at sea level and its station is at the tunnel portal.
It is a fully automated, rubber-tyred metro line based on the technology of the Paris Métro and opened on 27 October 2008. Upon the opening of Line M2, Lausanne replaced Rennes, France, as the smallest city in the world to have a full metro system.
The busiest urban subway system is the Shanghai Subway in China. In 2022, the city's subway system had an average daily ridership of 7,363,500 and carried 2,287,917,700 passengers over the course of the year. This is an increase on the previous two years, but still significantly lower than pre-pandemic levels.
The 7 Flushing Local and <7> Flushing Express are two rapid transit services in the A Division of the New York City Subway, providing local and express services along the full length of the IRT Flushing Line. Their route emblems, or "bullets", are colored purple, since they serve the Flushing Line.
1. London Underground History (1863) – The World's First Subway System. The London Underground, or Tube in London, is the oldest transport system of its kind in the world. It opened on the 10th of January 1863 with steam locomotives.
The cost to build a such a network across the U.S. would be approximately $4 trillion, according to the libertarian Cato Institute, which does not support building a passenger rail network on the grounds it would be too expensive. “We've got to decide to do it, that's really as simple as it is,” Gardner says.
New figures from the Office of Rail and Road reveal that CrossCountry is the worst culprit this year, cancelling nearly one in ten trains (9.54%). That means if you booked ten journeys in 2025, odds are at least one of them never left the platform. The long-distance operator isn't alone.
Like the city itself, the NYC Subway never sleeps, operating 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. At 665 miles (1,070 kilometers) long, with 25 lines – known locally as “trains” - and 472 stations it is North America's longest and busiest network by some distance and one of the world's greatest metro operations.
No, current trains can't go 5,000 mph, but theoretical Vactrain concepts (maglev trains in vacuum tubes) propose speeds of 4,000-5,000 mph (hypersonic), while today's fastest are around 375 mph, though China is testing maglevs aiming for 1,200+ mph (2,000 km/h). Reaching 5,000 mph requires overcoming immense challenges like air pressure, extreme forces, and material science, necessitating near-perfect vacuum tunnels and massive curves for safety.
The world's deepest metro station is Hongyancun station of Chongqing Rail Transit, at 116 metres (381 ft) deep, followed by Arsenalna on the Kyiv Metro, which is 105 metres (344 ft) deep.
The Tokyo Metro System is famous for being one of the cleanest subway systems in the world. Today they are cleaning the train cars at the ISA rail yard which they do every 15 days. The cleaners take careful measures to ensure each nook and cranny is cleaned.
Hongyancun station on Line 9 of Chongqing Rail Transit, China, holds the title of the deepest metro station in the world with its deepest point at 116 meters below ground.
