Metro world figures 2021
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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