<ul>
<li>1904 saw the opening of the New York City Subway with the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) division, now known as the A division, along with the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT).</li>
<li>It is the world’s largest network spreading 380 kilometres handling 1.72 billion passengers a year.  The 36 lines operate day and night, thus requiring more maintenance. </li>
<li>The subway stations were targeted with crime and vandalism in the 1970s, leading to loss of ridership.</li>
</ul>

The NYC Subway

<ul>
<li>Greece opened up its electrified rapid transport lines in 1904, converting a former electric railways station called the Athens-Piraeus (which was opened in 1869).</li>
<li>The lines were expanded in the year 2000 and merged with the Athens Mass Transit System in 2011.</li>
<li>The aim of this service was to offer an alternative to car users, and lower the pollution levels.</li>
</ul>

Athens Metro

<ul>
<li>Hungary’s Budapest Metro became operational soon after London in 1896.  It is now a world heritage site. </li>
<li>This four-line network had various expansions and extensions and features the world’s first automated metro route back in 2014.</li>
<li>The travel time saved each year by the fourth line, called M4, is about 14 million hours.</li>
</ul>

Budapest Metro

<ul>
<li>Germany was not far behind in the Metro race and opened the U-Bahn in Berlin in 1902, which now has more than 151 km of track, most of it underground.</li>
<li>The U-Bahn began as an elevated transport link between two heavily populated zones of the city. </li>
<li>The trains carried 553 million passengers in 2017 and travel a total of 132 million kilometres each year.</li>
</ul>

Berlin U-Bahn

<ul>
<li>The first metro to use the term ‘metro’, France opened Paris Métro in 1900. </li>
<li>This 16 line network is 214 km long and has had approximately 1.52 billion passengers since 2016.</li>
<li>It is heavily decorated with exquisite art in most of its entrances.</li>
</ul>

The Paris Métro

<ul>
<li>1901 saw the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) Subway opening in Boston, Massachusetts, US.</li>
<li>This train network has comparatively shorter lines and right from its inauguration was having the first electrified rapid transit line, now known as the Orange Line.</li>
</ul>

The MBTA Subway

<ul>
<li>In the US, the Chicago ‘L’ metro system started in 1897.  </li>
<li>It is the second most crowded electric train system in the country, with 24-hour services in select lines.</li>
<li>The train network is 165 km long with eight lines, including a ‘ring’ model that runs through the entire city in a circle.</li>
</ul>

Chicago ‘L’

<ul>
<li>The same year when the Budapest Metro opened(1896), Scotland inaugurated the world’s third oldest metro system.  </li>
<li>The route remains untouched and carries 13 million passengers every year. </li>
<li>The subway network has seen a number of upgrades and makeovers including extensive modernization of all the stations and replacement of trains and ramps.</li>
</ul>

The Glasgow Subway

<p>Electric metro trains first became operational in London back in 1890, as a part underground and part overground network. </p>
<p>Called the London Underground, this is a 402 km network with 270 stations and transports up to five million passengers a day.</p>

The First Electric Metro Trains

Metro systems across the world have been in operation since the late 1800s and transport millions of commuters across cities every day.

The MBTA Subway

World's oldest metro systems - Railway Technology

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