The World’s LARGEST Metro System! | Shanghai Metro Explained
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 ก.ค. 2023
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The Shanghai Metro is the world's largest metro system, and so it was about time we made an Explained video on it! Enjoy, and I hope you learn something about this marvellous metro.
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Ever wondered why your city's transit just doesn't seem quite up to snuff? RMTransit is here to answer that, and help you open your eyes to all of the different public transportation systems around the world!
Reece (the RM in RMTransit) is an urbanist and public transport critic residing in Toronto, Canada, with the goal of helping the world become more connected through metros, trams, buses, high-speed trains, and all other transport modes.
Thanks for all the kind comments everyone! Shanghai has a very impressive system!
What Chinese city do you think I should cover next?
maybe Shenzhen? given its proximity to Hong Kong some interesting comparisons could be made. It also has express service patterns
beijing
Chengdu!
Beijing has very interesting design compromises because of the history and it is the oldest one in China, Guangzhou has high ridership and express lines, Shenzhen has tight cooperation with it’s neighbor HKMTR, Chongqing has special geographical characteristics (large metro network + huge mountain city), Chengdu and Hangzhou are the two fastest growing networks and both of them has interesting express lines and cross Plattform interchanges, Nanjing has a interesting build strategy (suburban lines before many city centre lines).
Congqing!
Challenge of Shanghai metro: running out of colours on maps
Shanghai planned to build metro systems early in the 1960s. By that time the Soviet engineers considered that the wet and soft soil in the Yangtze River Delta is extremely challenging to build tunnels. However, in the year 1964, the city government managed optimize the engineering process and tried to build a tunnel under Hengshan park, this is thought to be the beginning of the Shanghai Metro. But his tunnel is too shallow to connect the neighbouring lines, and it is now serving as a civil air defense construction.
The soil is really challenging, it's not unlike Amsterdam - soggy!
@@RMTransit Wait until you check on the metro building of another city in China, Xi'an. The soil is fine, but the city is way too old to dig around, has too many ancient tombs of emperors and celebrities, relics, or things like those under it, that is challenging! lol
@@cheungchingtong so like rome huh
@@fadhil2831 yeah sort of
the relationship between the Chinese and the Soviet governments significantly deteriorated in the late 1950s, which was part of the reason for China's great famine. I guess it was unlikely that the Soviet engineers was involved in the 1960s. Probably in the mid 1950s?
Watching from a country that has been trying to build a single metro line for 25+ years and am just so envious of the efficiency and extensiveness of the service. Great video!
25 years means a new city built from ground up.
How about where I live?
It got the green light in 2008 to use existing rail (no need to build more lines, although I will dispute that on 2 sections, the existing lines would need doubling from single track for the increased capacity, but its like only 5miles worth (8km) and 3 new stations on exisiting lines) Yet its now 2023 and FA has happened. The green light is still there, they still wanna do it... 15yrs later and nothing! 95% of the infrastructure is already built ffs!
What country
lol in bangalore we get 5 lines in 2 and a half decades
@@mega6076 I think it's Russia (Chelyabinsk Metro)
Some fun facts on Shanghai Metro:
1. Other commentators have pointed out the geological challenges of building the Shanghai Metro. When the engineers decided to proceed with Line 1 in the late 80s, they chose TBM and developed innovative solutions for building and maintaining metro tunnels. Some of these have been patented and adopted by other Chinese cities.
2. A section of Line 2 is under Nanjing East Road, which has been there for over a century. It was first "prophesied" in an early 20th-century Chinese novel (《新中國》by 陸士諤) - but in the form of an underground tram line - along with the Nanpu Bridge and a road tunnel under the Huangpu River. Premier Wen Jiabao mentioned the "prophecy" shortly before Expo 2010.
PS. Guangzhou's metro also took decades to plan, and the planners underestimated ridership on some lines, resulting in some of the most crowded metro stations in the world! Maybe you can make a video about this later!
I will absolutely do a Guangzhou video in the future!
@@RMTransit
Let's talk about the Guangzhou Metro Lines 3 and 18 - they've got some interesting stories!
Line 3 was originally supposed to be a chill suburban route, but it turned out to be the worst nightmare for everyone with its crazy overcrowding. Although trains come as frequently as 90 seconds during rush hour, it is still packed like sardine cans. The main and only transfer station in central business station, Tiyu Xilu is nicknamed as "Diyu Xilu" ("Diyu" means hell in Mandarin). Its narrow platforms reminding you of 19 centuary European stations despite only being built a decade ago. It is a stark contrast to smooth trasfer stations on the HK MTR across the boarder.
On the other hand, Line 18 was built to give some relief to Line 3. Although it is super fast but not many people are using it because it doesn't connect well to the main business area and transfers take forever.
@@glendon8918 I experienced the additional buffer queues the station adds during rush hour. It keeps vital passages clear (esp the radial mezzanine), and overall took me ≤15min shuffling from station entrance to board a train. Much respect to station staff actively managing rush hour traffic. The station also directly connects to the super underground mall complex of Flower City / K11 /etc (花成汇), and has confusing access to the stacked Line 5 platforms. The northbound platform's door queues aren't divided between airport-bound and branch-bound trains. Line 18 hopefully relieves a lot of this traffic.
Hey it's S5A-0043 here. Great work on the video, and to the viewers hope you all enjoyed the video we worked on for over 1 month to get the footages and also revisions on the scripts :D
Thanks for everything! It came out great!
Interesting story! My family used to live in an apartment complex in Pudong along the line 6 alignment and we oversaw its opening.
Shanghai city officials were heavily rebuked for their shortsightedness regarding line 6. It was designed during an era where the then emerging Pudong District was mostly rice fields and sparsely populated farmland. In addition to it being the only north-south artery serving Pudong, for some reason the 4-car type C trains are chosen for them, and they are short, tiny, narrow, and only carry a fraction of the people a type 8A train can. It was so different than the type A standard Shanghai Metro has been loyal to for years.
Pudong then grew faster than anyone could've fathomed and the line was so successful that I could not remember a single time where line 6 did not feel like a claustrophobic sardine can. The last time I went back right before 2020, line 10 and line 12 were extended to intersect with line 6 to alleviate its traffic, and the line 6 alignment was so developed and SO DIFFERENT from the rural landscape I remembered as a child. Never underestimate the prosperity that transit can bring to an emerging area.
Sameeee, I used to use line 6 quite a few times and during rush hours the line to board it at Century Avenue station was always insanely long, with the cars being so crowded people press on you from all 4 sides. If you needed to get off early then you had to board last because there was no way in hell you could make it to the door from the middle of the seats.
line 6 was built for xiang wo ning, as shown crystal clear in the demo graphics data from the stat bureau.😅
just like there is still not even one escalator for them to use in Shanghai railway station.
I wish Americans someday realize how much public transit makes accessing home and paychecks so much easier next time they complain about traffic and gas prices.
Build the nest and birds will come.
@@doujinflip They are very expensive to build, and disruptive. Of course I hope for better public transport as well but there is a reason they aren't being built: $$$
I lived before in Hong Kong and now in Shanghai, and it is truly amazing to live with such masterpiece metro systems in my life.
Now, I'm only a second-language Chinese speaker, but your Chinese pronunciation seems pretty solid to me, nice job
Reece had a roommate from Chengdu back in uni I believe
As a native speaker I definitely agree - really solid all around. My only main critique is the “ong” sound as in Hongqiao or Pudong airport, just a little more taller/placed farther back in the mouth
Thanks! This is an uncommon pronunciation win for me
@@troy5094I vaguely remember a few RMTransit videos being voiced by someone who sounded Chinese a long time ago
I'm from Shanghai. He did ok.
Thanks for featuring my footage in the video! I appeared in the video going through the ticket gate at 12:47, and in the reflection at 15:16 😂
Woow 😁
I was just thinking, do all these people know they’re on someone’s metro explainer video on the internet
Moment 👍
Thanks for everything Felix!
u r so handsome
It’s amazing how Shanghai’s Metro started in 1993 and on its 30th year, it’s expanded to being larger than Tokyo’s. I will still remain a loyal fan of the Tokyo/Toei Metro, but Shanghai’s Metro is quite impressive
It is bigger, although probably not if you bundle the "subway style" lines in both cities. Rinkai line etc
As a Shanghainese living in Tokyo, I have to clarify that Shanghai Metro is no match for Tokyo train system or even just a minor joke.
@@lavioliberty8066 please, tell us more. You mean in terms of punctuality or efficiency, the Tokyo metro is ahead ?
@@Desi365 As a Shanghaiese who just traveled to Tokyo last week, the MFD/ information display is definitely better in Tokyo, as well as the audio. However I still prefer Shanghai's platforms since most of them are underground with AC and door/gates. Shanghai's line names are simply numbers and Tokyo are actual names, which is harder for foreign visitors but more interesting. And the stops in Tokyo have station codes which is also quite useful. However there are more escalator in Shanghai Metro and I don't like walking :P
@@haodou4971 Pretty good idea for stations to have number, i dig that, thank you
One funny thing is that, having grown up in Shanghai planted the idea of "let's get to the platform first and then figure out which direction to take" into my mind. As a result, as much as I understand the benefits of them, I really hate cross-platform transfers in other cities since I often find myself on the wrong platform.
I’ve been waiting for this video for a long time; I spent a lot of time in Shanghai through my childhood and basically grew up with this system. You’ve done an excellent job here with research and pronunciations. It’s still my favorite system in the world and I can’t wait to visit back!
Interesting fact about the route of line 3: The right of way of the lower part of Line 3 used to be a connector line between Shanghai south and north railway station. The line hugs the traditional ‘downtown’ area as it was built to contain the encroachment of foreign concessions, what once was called the international settlement
You're absolutely right, it's also the reason why lines 3 and 4 share track, which Reece unfortunately missed
this is really cool!
That makes a lot of sense!
The whole line almost followed the historical “railway loop line” and 淞滬鐵路of Shanghai(Zaonhae). It’s quite interesting since they just didn’t elevate the railway and use it for commuter rail
Well...since Chinese Railway is nationalized and mainly focusing on long-distance passenger/freight transport，urban-regional services are often neglected and discouraged by CR, and cities can be a lot frustrated to cope with CR to run CR-based commuter services. Nowadays cities like Shanghai and Shenzhen are building new suburban networks themselves or acquiring disused CR lines entirely.
Native Chinese speaker and studied in Shanghai for four years. My favorite city and I just took the Line 2, 10, 13, 12, 1 in like this week. Thank you so much for talking about Shanghai, Reece 😭😭😭I am crying
By the way, your pronunciation of Chinese cities are pretty legit.
I am happy you enjoyed! I have studied some Chinese!
I suspect the reason that Shanghai and other Chinese cities don’t have cross platform transfers is that they are deliberately making the transfers longer to avoid congestion. I know this is the case at haidianhuangzhuang sta. between Line 4 and Line 10 in Beijing, where if you just walk in the wrong direction, against traffic, you can cut your transfer by 80% 😅 I only know this because I lived near that station for years and I suspect it’s the same case for a lot more Chinese stations
It is more because of the natural terrain which fundamentally shapes the layout of a city, and in turn its metro lines.
Hangzhou has the greatest proportion of cross-platform transfers among all subway systems in China, partly because the city develops around the Qiantang River, which has multiple turns in the city and imposes major restrictions on the routes of the train lines. More often than not, when two lines meet each other, they have to turn around and run in parallel through the interchange station, rather than intersecting with each other, so a cross-platform transfer setup is a natural result of the line alignment.
Correct. The is exactly the reason.
Same with xizhimen in Beijing, going from line 13 to line 2/4
I think that is more of a Beijing thing; I've noticed in many other Chinese cities (Shanghai among them) that you can transfer in either direction in most passageways. But yes, Beijing is SO annoying with that 😆
Plans changing don't help either. Line 11 Caoyang Road Station had provisions for Line 14 platforms, but then they decided to divert the 14 to run under Wuning Road. Some missed connections are due to (legitimate IMO) land constraints - there's just not suitable plots of land for building open-cast stations (they won't do mined station caverns due to the ground). When it was decided line 14 would be 8 cars there was no suitable site for a Shanxi Road South station, which was initially planned to provide interchange with line 12.
I was in Shanghai from 2008 to 2013 and the metro growth leading up the expo there in 2010 was insane. Would love to come back and see how it is now
8:03 These "virtual interchanges" are quite common in London, where you can leave the station to change to a different line but will only pay a single through-fare. Here it's called an OSI, or "out of station interchange".
For sure! I think its a great system of the feature!
Thanks for the video. I previously lived in Shanghai for fifteen years, and the Shanghai metro system is really clean and efficient, much different from the TTC subway system I use now ...... Seeing these video clips of the Shanghai metro and buses feels like going back home.
I previously lived in Suzhou for about 2 1/2 years, but because I lived on the border with Shanghai, it was more convenient for me to visit the latter. I echo your sentiment, I definitely felt a strong pang of nostalgia watching this video.
You do so much for the train community on TH-cam! Thanks for the video!
Thanks for watching!
Can you do a video on the Guangzhou Metro? It isn't as big as Shanghai but they did implement high-speed/metro hybrid trains in Line 18 and Line 22 for intercity metro into nearby small cities and is planned to develop from the north of Guangzhou to the south. The trains claimed the fastest metro title from the Washington D.C. metro with a staggering 160 kmph speed.
Yes, actually I think it will be a whole Pearl River Delta Video
Yes. Do GZ! Please.
I’m flying to Hangzhou, China tomorrow and staying for a month. It’s metro system I’d argue is much better built than a lot of cities in China - namely, cross platform interchanges. I could take some footage for you if you ever want to make a video about Hangzhou.
That's quite right. I was also impressed by the multiple cross-platform transfers in Hangzhou.
@@yanfeizhang3580 Yes, I hope in Manila, there will be lots of cross-platform transfers, especially for 9 Main Lines, like Line 2 that traverses West-East through Radial Road 6, Line 1 that traverses North-South near to the coast of Manila, and more.
Yess!!! The Shanghai Metro! IMO, every city should upscale their metro in a similar way that Shanghai has done, not necessarily make it as big, but see bigger than they currently do.
Beinjing, Ghangzhou, Chengdu and Chongqing in particular should probably get explainers. As well as mentioning some of the growing systems which only recently started.
What a wonderful video! Thank you for covering Shanghai! I bet this episode took a long time to make, as it is hard to find materials in English. One small problem though at 13:52: throughout the day many services on Line 11 do actually travel from either end of the two branches to Disney Resort, so it is not the case that passengers always have to change trains in order to travel end to end. Of course there are still many services that only run through a portion of the whole line. The service pattern varies depending on whether it is rush hour or not. On average, it takes about 1h50min to travel between Huaqiao (the terminus of the longer branch) and Disney Resort without changing trains, covering about 72km of tracks.
The shanghai maglev was originally designed to go all the way to 虹桥(hong qiao) airport serving as an airport express (with stops at 上海南站 (shanghai south railway station) iirc), what remains currently were its phase one, subsequent phases were opposed by local NIMBYs and halted. There's still a meglav station connection in 虹桥火车站 (hongqiao railway station) in anticipation for it's completion. I personally believe this is the reason why the majority of lines in shanghai is underground.
There's talk for reactivating the project using the original general alignment in the long range plan. There's even talks to extend it as an intercity meglav all the way to 杭州(Hangzhou), a major city nearby for which the high-speed mainline is already semi-congested at minute headway (think SCMeglav project in japan).
Afterall! Nice vid RM!
Thanks for the detailed comment! The original plans for the maglev were absolutely much grander!
Yeah, the maglev is great as a train fan but is currently not good as transportation.
@@grahamturner2640
Not much for conventional underground lines(for it would do noting but boost the NIMBY's property values), but the NIMBY's are extremely stubborn on against any above-ground lines for possible '' block of sunlight''，noise pollution, and in Maglev's case，''Radiation''.（And some idiots use this very reasons to ask the signal base stations to be moved out of their neighborhood)
@@kathaz3225 Yeah, there's a reason that the last time I was in Shanghai I took the maglev away from Pudong ("when the next time I'm going to have the opportunity to ride a maglev!?")...and then Line 2 back (I was actually going to Nanjing so I was traveling from Shanghai Pudong to Hongqiao). Not only is it 10x more expensive (it might have been even more back then, this was 6 years ago), but the inconvenient transfers were a drag, whereas Line 2 is a one-seat ride. I wish the AirPort Express line had existed then, would have been much nicer than riding Line 2 for 90 minutes.
Actually, that transfer at Longyang Road was pretty annoying not just because I had to wander around outside and to the metro station but also because I had trouble using the ticket machines. Eventually some other passenger got fed up and basically did it for me, probably so I would stop clogging up the line...
Transrapid, the original German co behind this maglev tech, is gone, but the same monorail maglev type seems to be in development by Chinese r&d, so this gadgetbahn isn't an antique train just yet
Ive been waiting for this one! I’ve always wanted to figure out more about this system! ❤
I hope you learned lots!
The sheer satisfaction and joy that washed over me as you pronounced Shanghai. Correctly. So many people say it like Shaynghai and it just annoys me
That makes me happy to hear!
I’m not from Shanghai but itching to visit again. Love the extensive footage and detailed research, thanks for sharing.
Very nice! Clear animations, interesting writing, and your vocal inflections keep my attention without veering off into the annoying territory of loud TV commercials. It's great to see the continuing development of your skills and your channel!
Hi Reece, I think many people would appreciate more videos about Chinese/Asian metro systems and bring their good operation to other parts of the world.
What a change! I visited Shanghai for a few days in 1986. I was staying in a hotel that overlooked a bridge across Suzhou Creek, which runs into the Huangpu River just north of the Bund. And one day I watched an ambulance, with its lights flashing, trying to cross the bridge, which couldn't have been much more than 100 feet long. The bridge was so congested that it took the ambulance *10 minutes* to cross. And I remember thinking "this city really needs a subway system."
I hope emergency vehicles can move a little faster nowadays.
Great video!! I've been looking forward to this video for a long time! As someone who grew up in Shanghai, it's so good to see the system being appreciated and analyzed in detail!
3:35 Didn't know Shanghai had the oldest continuously operating system in the world! Thanks for doing all this research for us
Its a pretty cool system, Guangzhou has a lot of trolleys too!
One fact in Shanghai Metro: all trains will return to the depot before 24:00. If the depot is on the end of the line, so the last train arrives at the terminal station around 23:45. If the journey takes 90 minutes, then the last train will leave the first station around 22:30, making it difficult to travel after 22:30 in the network.
This provides longer period for workers to mantain the train and the tracks, but as an trade-off, passengers may need to use taxis after 22:30.
Wow I didn't realize this. So it does not run 24hrs? I suppose this makes 3rd shift work very difficult for people living in the outskirts of the city.
@@moejuggler6033 Asian train usually ends services at midnight, this also includes country like Japan. I live in Jakarta, and our busses, metro, and commuter system also ends their services at midnight. Although there are some bus lines that run night service, these lines are running 24-hours. That said, the headway is abysmal. Usually around 40-minutes after 2200 hours.
specific introduction of SH metro 👍🏻感谢制作
I rode line 16 when it was brand new in 2014. It was one of the first metros to run at 120km/h. On a side note, I want to experience urban maglev in China with a speed of 160km/h. I believe they have done testing and research in Changsha with higher speed urban maglevs.
Changsha maglev, quite useful, yes, but pretty underwhelming (my personal experience)
Its a very cool line, I find the use of third rail rail intereting!
Just rode the Chengdu airport metro and it runs at 140km/h! Chengdu Tianfu airport is super far from the city tho
@@MingGongcoolmango71 blurring the line between metro and high speed rail is fun!! I wish more metro systems around the world would implement local and express metros using passing stations. Japan does this extensively and extremely successfully!
@@troy5094 did you ride it recently or back before Covid? I’m curious if they increased the operating speed of it during normal operation.
so excited to see what you have stored for this video
Man I am so happy you covered this. Although as a Canadian Chinese who was born there I haven't lived all my life in Shanghai, the few years I spent there definitely made me appreciate the metro SO MUCH! Yes, transfers are long and annoying, and yes, intercity travel between Pudong and Hongqiao takes longer than a HSR from Hongqiao to Hangzhou, but man is it a great asset to the city. It's so convenient to get around without a car in Shanghai because of the Metro.
I suspect the reason why platform sharing between lines is limited in Shanghai was because of the loop/light rail lines sharing platforms on a majority of track within city centre. Line 3's ridership shot thru the roof after developments in the north of the city and the shared lines majorly affected capacity so I guess planners just avoided the entire thing. This is all my speculation thou.
I really do think NA cities can learn a lot from Chinese metro development since it's so standardized, it's much easier to just copy your homework and tweek it a little instead of making up a complete solution for every case. Saves so much on cost and time, it's a reason why China can build metro in every major city so quickly.
Great video!
Worked so hard for this one
Thank you so much for the clips! I think its a great explainer!
Great job. I love how you cover Chinese metros, because even the bigger cities are confusing and forgotten about in the west
Thanks! Stay tuned for more in the future!
i had to get my breakfast ready before watching this. i’ve been waiting for it since i began watching your channel!!!!
Very well done. Thanks!
Thanks for watching!
I have been to Shanghai many times over the years, and enjoyed watching them, build out the system. When I first went there, I think there were only a few lines!
The pace of growth has been impressive!
19:27 I used to go to class every day from this station! Longxi Rd on Line 10. I can ride a shareable bike to the station from my house. I love how the lavender color is everywhere on the trains and in the stations, unlike some other lines in SH. The transfers are a bit long comparing to HK and NY, especially the transfer to Line 1 at S Shaanxi Rd, which I avoid. But the sheer density of the system and cleanliness (comparing to the US especially) makes me rather take the metro than drive. By the way, the size of Chinese cities are massive for American scales. SH is about 8 times bigger than NYC!
1:46 This world-renowned area of Shanghai also inspired one of the greatest singer-songwriters of our time - Cardi B, with her song titled "Wet Ass Puxi"
😂😂😂Wild
Great work. More of this, please.
Do Chongqing next! Liziba station is super unique and something I'm sure more people would love to hear about.
Also, Changsha. This relatively unknown city outside of China is expanding at a rate of just under one Metro Line per year. 2014 they had just one line, now they just opened their 7th line, not including inter-city and maglev.
Btw anyone else in China a fan of collecting metro tokens? Would love to visit every metro system in the country, but last I checked there were 46(!).
@@sergeant_ozzy1037 It's more than 50 now
I will absolutely do Chongqing, though probably not next!
@@sergeant_ozzy1037yes. But i dont have many. Shanghai, Hangzhou, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
@@tom.shanghai same. So far I have Xiamen, Nanjing, Changsha, Guangzhou, and Foshan. Plan on getting more on my next trip over.
Best video so far Reece!
Thanks for finally featuring my Metro & home town. Good work capturing the vibe. Greetings from M7 Changping Road (faster to enter/exit than equidistant Jing'an Temple). Edit: I suggest you cover Chongqing Metro next, if Shanghai is a model for flat river city systems, CQ is the model for mountainous cities including the much criticized (by outsiders) Hitachi monorails that look strange and run a little slow but climb mountains to connect lines that would otherwise require numerous unaffordable tunnels.
As a Chinese who studies at UBC, kudos to Reece for doing a video on Chinese transit systems, really appreciate the efforts you’ve made given it’s relatively hard to find resources and materials about Chinese systems
I love your videos. You should go around the world riding public transport like Sam Chui goes around riding airlines.
Great video! The reason why part of Line 1 runs on grave is because the Line was built in multiple stages (as are most of the metro lines in Shanghai). Line 1 originally ended ones station south of Shanghai South Railway Station, but it is said that the local district government gave a lot of money to the city (some say half of that year's revenue) to get an extension for 3 more stations. At the time of this, the area was pretty rural and basically consisted of only fields, so it made sense to build the extension on grave to save money.
Dear RMTransit:
As a citizen of Shanghai and a frequent traveller on SH Metro, have to say it is probably one of the best metro systems globally. The price is cheap, it has high accessibility to most parts of the city centre and most interchange are actually more friendly than you talked in the video, only via some stairs in most cases, while some cases do involve long walkways which isn’t very good. Another thing pretty interestingly is a offer for smart card holders in Shanghai that you can save some money if you change from metro to a bus service within a particular time, provided that the fees of SH metro is only 1/10 of London Underground. The latest lines are extremely futuristic, and the automatic driving trains are very cool, it is highly recommended to try a journey on SH Metro for visitors.
Shanghai Metro system size is small for the size of the city. There's only one single class of services (all stops) and there's no express layer for the outer areas. Corden capacity in to the Central Activity Zone is a fraction of London's. For example the whole of Qingpu, and rail and air passengers arriving at Hongqiao are funnelled into all shacks lines 2 and 10 which have their own commuters to serve as well. Lines 17 and 16 really ought to be connected through an express new line through the central area to relieve the 2 and the 10 (think Crossrail relieving the Central and Jubilee). Likewise the northern end of line 1 (Fujin, Yanghang, Yuepu, and out to Shengqiao) and southern end of lines 8/5 (Chenhang, Jinhui, Nanqiao) should also have an express line so that people in Pengpu and Sanlin can actually get on lines 1 and 8.
Hongqiao Railway Station was designed as the same complex with the Hongqiao Airport. When the station was first built, in addition to the impressive 30 rail platforms, the construction of the project also reserved 10 planforms engineered to anticipate a huge Maglev system. However Maglev never became a thing at Hongqiao and currently a few of those reserved platforms are being converted to serve a new rail link to the Pudong Airport.
I arrived in Hongqiao Rail Station, got a bit lost finding the Metro, and ended up boarding at the Hongqiao Aiport Metro station, without ever leaving a building.
In addition to Meglav station, which is no longer happening due to protest.
Regarding the lack of cross-platform interchanges: There is actually a cross platform interchange that was prepared, but is not in use. At People's square, there is an additional southbound-only side platform of line 8 (in addition to the central platform accessing north and southbound trains, so southbound trains actually open doors on both sides). It would have direct access to northbound trains of line 1, but there are doors there that permanently block this access. During my 5 years in Shanghai from 2013 to 2018 I never saw these doors open. Probably they were used in the beginning when line 8 was opened, but later they figured out that the platform space is too small there.
One point that was missed - line two is super slow. The station barriers are different from line one (and others) being half height, and I think a lot of the slowness seemingly coming from the delays in getting these older doors open. The trip out to PVG from longyang road will almost always take longer than the maglev (line 16) as a result, even if you have to wait for it.
Great video! Finally you made a video dedicated for my hometown, I am very impressed with how much knowledgeable you had about Shanghai metro, without even visited Shanghai (not sure if you did). Must did lots of hard work and deep researching! You even mentioned about the political argument behind line 5!
Great video, as usual. Any plan to make videos on Shenzhen and Guangzhou metros?
I got one on shenzhen if you wanna see 😵 welcome welcome
Great video! Fun fact: the maglev was planned to connect the two airports together, and even the neighbouring city of Hangzhou in the future. But since the planned route was too close to the residential areas, and due to the rumour that the Germans bribed the city officials to build it, there was huge demonstrations along the planned route. As a Shanghai native I have actually attended one of the demonstrations with my family. I live by a river and I remember that the proposal is to build it directly on the river like the Wuppertal monorail. (Anyone from Xinzhuang here? :)
As for the metro, IMO Shanghai should retrofit passing loops to existing metro lines. It would be fun to combine line 1 and line 5 into a single line with express trains directly connecting Fengxian to the city centre. It might also be helpful to use the non-high-speed rail segments to build North-America-style intercity commter lines instead of building the expensive new high-speed suburban lines that doesn't even go to the city centre.
And a not-so-fun fact: My family and I only went to one anti-maglev demonstration because my grandmother saw a middle-aged lady getting dragged into an unmarked van by a bunch of plainclothes policemen so we noped out pretty quickly.
@@user-mx3yk6ie1yDamn that is hard to see.
I personally wouldn't trust riding in any of these trains, specifically in the underground and/or newly constructed lines (if you've seen anything recent on tofu dreg construction and flooding).
The normal services of line 11 are indeed from end to end. (Disney Resort-North Jiading, Disney Resort-Huaqiao) The service that don’t run from end to end only happens in peak hours, with the trains starting from Huaqiao station terminating at Luoshan Road station and then come back, and the trains from North Jiading station going to the end, namely Disney Resort station, as usual.
Great vid! I would love to see a video about chongqing metro system! As it is the largest city on earth and has an extensive metro system
Thanks for covering my hometown. Have been waiting for this for years. Speaking of the last points you covered, there are plans for building express lines accross the city center proposed by the metro operator Shentong, but has not heen approved yet.
I've been watching you for months now and I appreciate your passion on sharing information and opinions about different railway systems around the world specifically, in North America. I would appreciate if you cover the railway system that my country/city has which is Manila. It aint the best nor it stand out as a revolutionary system at that, but the recent developments that occur in our railway system is very interesting to say the least like the NSCR and the subway. Appreciate your vids and will wait for the next one hehe.
Yes, I appreciate it, If I become mayor of entire Singapore-Sized Manila, I will build 9 Major Metro Lines, mostly underground, and 3 lines will do a major rehabilitation, and massive extensions to provinces such as Rizal, and Cavite, Think PNR-NSCR as the 10th line of Manila Metro, in which it is a Suburban Metro Line that connects Pampanga, Bulacan, Manila, Laguna, Batangas, and soon, through its branch lines, Nueva Ecija, Rizal, Cavite, and Quezon might be connected too.
Do Guangzhou next! There's also potential for 4 different cities to have their metros connected up: Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Foshan, and Dongguan. They're all right there next to each other at the Pearl River Delta. That should be a fun video.
Thanks for putting so much effort into learning to pronounce the names properly, all the names are understandable!
Can’t wait to visit Shanghai some day! Please make more videos about Chinese transit systems!
Great vid with lots of details, love it! I'd like to add a fun fact: due to the reason @MyacreaAX mentioned ("Line 3 used to be a connector line between Shanghai south and north railway station(the nowadays Shanghai Railway station)"), metro 3 is the line that is ENTIRELY ELEVATED in central Shanghai and followed the route of some historic railways, hence being called "light rail" 轻轨 when it was first put into operation.
and i really like ur comments on SH metro at the end of the video. commuting in SH usually takes more than 40 minutes, and the journey underground without signals is really boring (esp after the metro's wifi contractor no longer provide the service LMAO), so SH really needs some cross-city express lines like Paris RER or Crossrail.
btw, DO cover Guangzhou, cuz Guangzhou metro already covered the neighboring city Foshan, and it has plans to connect other neighboring cities. besides, I think it is one of the most crowded yet efficient metro system in China as other comments mentioned.
Just to say somthing for my fav(and most used) line of all, Line 3. The reason why it was entirely built above ground is because before the construction it was classified as a 'Light Rail' to sort of circumvent the restrictions on constructing new metro lines due to economic and debt reasons back then. Also some part of it was built directly on(or I should say above) the old Songhu Railway, built in 1876 by the British.
Oh and the sharing line with Line 4 was basically to reduce cost, because of the limited budget and such. It is sometimes a bit irritating to get on the wrong train and end up at the wrong place, especially with the newer more standardized trains(Line 3 and 4 looked exactly the same apart from the numbers on the side, old trains looks quite different from another).
And for the transfer system, one of the local favorite(or least favorite, depending on whether you like walking or not) is the "Mount Everest - Mariana Trench" @ Hongkou Football Stadium. It is connected to a mall which is nice but to travel from 4 floors above ground to basement floor 3 is irritating. This is due to the planned connection(above ground) never actualized.
Part of the issues with missing cross platform transfers is that during peak hours there can be queues to outside of the platform. In Beijing, transfers between line 10 and line 4 can fill the entirety of the 200+m of transfer tunnel during peak hours.
Hello, a native Zoanhaenese(Shanghainese) here! I really like your coverage of the metro system of Shanghai (Zoanhae). What I found interesting about Shanghai’s system was that many lines were actually serving the purpose of a commuter rail of other places, and in Shanghai it was just an integrated part of the metro system. This actually made the average length of each line to be quite long (not counting that there were restraints from the Central Government on how many lines Shanghai could build, which eventually led to cutbacks and merges of several lines into one line)
I’m totally agree on what you said about the underground stations and “weird” (or almost non existent) commuter rail service in the suburbs, as most of them aren’t even that cost efficient, and I think it’s important for Shanghai to focus more on higher quality commuting rails (if Zaonhae could buy those railways from the CNR)
I'd love to see a video on the Rhein-Ruhr area, Germanys largest metropolitan area, similar in size to Paris.
While there are huge amounts of regional trains between the city center hubs (many of which terribly overcrowded), beyond that it's kind of messy with every city being in charge of it's own public transit, resulting in cities like Düsseldorf of Cologne having huge light rail networks, whereas cities like Gelsenkirchen or Oberhausen have next to no rail transit apart from regional trains.
I'd like to hear your take on the region, how to fix it's problems and use it's potential, but i understand other videos might have higher priority.
Love your videos anyway and greetings from Duisburg!
Nice video. Have you ever done a video on the Tashkent Metro? Supposedly it has interesting stations.
Thank you! And not yet!
This is truly an excellent video.
But there's one small problem: The Translohr system in Shanghai(which is also called the Zhangjiang Tram system) was just being removed from the city because of many other reasons.
Thanks for making such great videos! I have learned a lot from here.
With regards to the shared section of Line 3/4, I believe I read somewhere that there are plans to build a new tunnelled section for Line 4 to complete the loop underground and return the elevated section to Line 3 only, thus solving the capacity problems on both lines.
That would be awesome!
@@RMTransit The short term solution is signal upgrade. Currently, these lines are being retrofitted with Urbalis Fluence, the next-generation CBTC solution developed by Alstom, featuring a train-centric architecture and direct train-to-train communications. Train-centric CBTC moves much of the cotrolling logic off from wayside systems to trains, has better real-time performance and is easier to deploy. The aim of the project is to achieve 100-second headway along the overlapped section as well as GoA3 operation.
THAT DRAMATIC INTRO WAS CUTE 😂😂😂😂
A thing i dont think you mentioned is the Platfrom doors and gates are not automatic and the operators have to leave the cab and operate them separately from the train doors. It often takes about 10 seconds to open doors or to leave because of that.
Yeah, this was something I wanted to mention but, it didn't make the final cut!
Hi @RMTransit, I've been viewing your videos for quite some time since early last year. As a Malaysian, I do wish to see a video on Klang Valley transit system. Thanks! 🇲🇾🇨🇦
I currently live in Shanghai and I love the metro here! I lived in some major cities in the US including NYC and nothing compares to this. Between the rental bikes and the metro I can get almost anywhere in the city quickly and at dirt cheap cost.
I hope you are Han Chinese.
I've done some digging about the maglev line in Shanghai. Originally the maglev line was meant to go through the entire city connecting at least Hongqiao and Pudong airport, and at least one station in downtown shanghai (basically the area where Nanjing East/West road is mentioned in the video). It was also originally designed to have the system to potentially connect to other cities near Shanghai. The problem arose when residence that lived around the proposed stations started protesting against the construction due to pseudoscience claiming that the magnetic field from the maglev would make people sick (Longyang road, where the Maglev end today back then was surrounded by farmland, as what I saw in 2006 as a child), and another legitimate concern about noise pollution. Though the protests were pretty detrimental to the project, the nail in the coffin was a whole bunch of municipal/national politics that was going on around the maglev that made the project short of its potential.
*Update:* The maglev was also loosing a tremendous amount of money every year (no information on its finances today though), meanwhile the Shanghai metro is actually one of the few metro systems around the world that actually makes a slight profit due to the shear amount of ridership every day.
Over the years, at least as far as I was doing research into this in 2019, many proposals of reviving the original plan has been supported by a lot of people and the government, but to no avail till today. Mostly because the role of the original, complete Maglev has been almost replaced by the expansive metro system already available. It is currently being extended into Terminal 3 of the Pudong Airport, but other potential extensions are still on the drawing board like in the past decade, though it's slowly making progress.
Personally I've actually tested the time it takes for me to commute in the city, in some places it really is way cheaper to ride on the subway than getting a taxi. Not necessary that you'd get to a place faster, but you'd be saving a lot of money just by spending an extra 30 minutes as an example.
PS: Apparently if you use the Shanghai public transportation card OR show your boarding pass from your flight, you'd get a 20% (or 10 yuan) discount on the maglev
im really eager to watch this video soon! previously i watched your video on tokyo rail transit and it helped me with navigating around the city during my trip to tokyo. im sure this video will help when i visit shanghai in the near future!
I hope its helpful too!
Love the channel. Im a long time subscriber and also a long term resident of Suzhou. If you want some footage of the metro and tram lines let me know.
Thank You!
Simon Wheeler scooped you earlier this week but I ignored his megaproject treatment and waited til today to treat myself to your version!
No scoops haha, lots of transit to go around!
I heartily approve of the line-colour... line on the train liveries.
Nice introduction，Love from SH❤
In regard to the new northern line, I think it probably had to be underground given it crosses the Yangtze, which given the level of shipping traffic there would’ve required a massive bridge to be built for it which I’m sure was going to be more expensive/harder to plan than just digging a tunnel.
this sure is a long time coming
impressive video! Thank you very much from a native. 😊
As where the city I grew up, the Shanghai Metro is definitely one of the best in the country.
However, over the years there has been a great number of wrong decision and pitfalls in design that happened which leads to a lesser satisfactory system as you may seen.
One of which is the mentioned line 6 and line 8 using C cars and led to overcrowding issues.
Line 18 was the first implementation of Japan's dynamic coupling and Express/local train service which the design could not be fully carried out due to bad block section design and limitation of tracks.
Furthermore, Shanghai metro is running as several divisions with groups of lines operating by one sub-company. For example, line 1 and line 9 belongs to Shanghai Metro Division 1, and part of the line 9 fleet was transferred from line 1 with their numbers still in 01xxxx.
Line 6 and line 8 is also one company for type C trains.
Line 3 and line 4 are shared between the fleets (one sub-div). There are trains with 3 and 4 labeled and there are dual color trains which often confuse non-local people as the line number is displayed on the dot board...
I hope next video will be about Chengdu’s metro system. The first line opened in 2010 and now there are over 580km of lines in Chengdu now.
19:27 I used to go to class every day from this station! Longxi Rd on Line 10. I can ride a shareable bike to the station from my house. I love how the lavender color is everywhere on the trains and in the stations, unlike some other lines in SH. The transfers are a bit long comparing to HK and NY, especially the transfer to Line 1 at S Shaanxi Rd, which I avoid. But the sheer density of the system and cleanliness (comparing to the US especially) makes me rather take the metro than drive. The size of Chinese cities are massive for American scales. SH is about 8 times bigger than NYC!
Thanks. Impressive. Please provide links to your video on Chinese metro types and the specs.
Thank you for the efforts! You are definitely Pro at explaining the subway system in China. Hope you can do more cities!🎉
woooooooohooo here we go baby
Hope it was worth the wait!
thanks for the video!!! As a local Shanghainese , I wish line 11 could have express trains for so long😢 And an even bigger ring line is much needed
Man, I thought the New York City Subway was complex but DAMN!
The Shanghai Metro is amazing. Although i only have memories of riding Line 2 watching new videos show all platform doors have been replaced with a more modern design and new trains are being used
I lived in Shanghai for 11 years, I can't count the number of times I took the metro there. It's efficient, from a non-expert point of view. The only bad thing about it that I can remember are the people leaning on the middle poles preventing you from grabbing it. Same problem with the hand bars on each side of the doors. It's the perfect spot to lean and look at your phone. Lots of cars were built by bombardier.
Shanghai should consider merging a few lines that book end at weird places.