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Statistics Brief
publication

Metro world figures 2021

  • Global
  • Benchmarking
  • Data
Introduction

Metros are crucial assets for efficient, sustainable mobility in cities worldwide

From 2018 to 2020, during the three-year period following the last UITP World Metro Figures, 14 new cities opened a metro system, taking the total number to 193 cities. During this time, infrastructure grew globally by almost 25%, with the Asia-Pacific region accounting for 21% and mainland China for 17% alone.

In 2020, COVID-19 shook the world and public transport with it. Global metro ridership fell by 40% in 2020 compared to 2019. No region was spared, with average drops rates ranging from 32% in Asia-Pacific to 63% in North America.

For this new metro Statistics Brief, UITP has collected exhaustive data on a series of key indicators for global urban rail systems running on an exclusive right-of-way, including ridership, number of lines, network length, number of stations and fleet size.

  • 84

    cities in Asia-Pacific have metro networks

  • 3,300km

    of new infrastructure was put in revenue service between 2018 and 2020

  • 1.5 billion

    London’s annual ridership in 2019

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