The World’s LARGEST Metro System! | Shanghai Metro Explained

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.

As always, leave a comment down below if you have ideas for our future videos. Like, subscribe, and hit the bell icon so you won't miss my next video!

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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.

[RMTransit]

Thanks for all the kind comments everyone! Shanghai has a very impressive system!

What Chinese city do you think I should cover next?

[lyri-kyunero]

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.

[sprconan]

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!

[kevincui]

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.

[FelixAn]

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 😂

[SBSL]

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

[ChineeseChameleon]

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!

[jerryxu]

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!

[ardenjacob]

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.

[jonseilim]

You do so much for the train community on YouTube! Thanks for the video!

[type-ke]

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.

[Koguma_ei]

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

[jebbo-cl]

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

[transportspotterraphael]

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.

[japanesetrainandtravel]

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

[djdj]

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.

[hexijieaaa]

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.

[erbium]

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

[Reason]

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".

[GldenOwl]

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.