What Makes a Perfect Transit System 

Yes. And if you’re in chicago, most businesses lock their bathrooms too.

If you have a cop at every bathroom, cool idea.

​@starventure why most trainstaions here are unmanned but have toilets. It is no more dangerous then waiting at the platform. And most transit systems have rather high foot traffic what helps with safty

​@@brunhildevalkyrieToronto too, it got a lot worse after Covid. Even if you buy something, some businesses still may not let you use their washrooms.

Big up N7

I feel like i should know, but... what are PSDs? ; /

living in turin, basically lyon's smaller, italian twin i am extremely jealous. we do have a proper suburban rail network, but the absence of trolleybuses and having only one "metro" (VAL) line is kinda frustrating

@@pcongre Platform Screen doors.

Lyon is getting a video this year :D

@@RMTransit Will watch it for sure! The MPL16 is one of the best looking subway in the world in my opinion (comparable to a MP14, but quite wider). The only things which annoy me with Lyon Metro is its rather short routes and relatively low frequency (2 to 5 mins headways in peak for most lines) compared to other French metro systems (1 to 2 mins with VAL, yes).

@@anthonydpearson having a choice of options has to be the way forward.

I'm still a fan of the lroof of payment in German speaking countries, just get a month/year pass and then never think about fare gates again. Especially the government subsidized passes in Germany and Austria are insanely cheap, 49€ to get on any transit vehicle (except HSR) in all of Germany for an entire month is unbeatable

I wasn't at all sure what was meant by gondolas. I assumed it probably wasn't Venetian style boats, but couldn't think what it might be.

helo roger sexton (british)

It really annoying when I have to pay again for the bus after getting of the tube, I personally don't have to deal with this much but I know someone who live in morden who takes the bus to morden station and then the tube and they have to pay +300 or more on top of tube fares in a year just to get a 10 minute bus ride to and from the station.

Gondolas is the exclusive word for those in Canada... I'm in Québec, and they even used an anglicisme of it French: they are called "Gondoles" ... All Canadians, in both languages would be confused by the reputed (though typically logical) ''télécabine¨. That is not a thing here... neither is a lift, or a lorry.

​@@NeoCawte yeah i seriously do not get why bus fares are not integrated into Tube fares when both are used together. Personally, i also dislike the fact that London doesn't use proper distance baed fare system, but uses a fare zone system. If it used a proper distance based system for Trains and Buses (like Singapore), you could calculate exactly how much you've traveled via bus when you've tapped in AND OUT, and also how much you've travelled via train when you've tapped in and out, and come to a final fare number based on weightings/fares per km of different modes.

Thank you for the introduction to this lesser-known system - such a great reminder that transit systems should be celebrated for the value they create for a community, not solely for the largest possible ideal metrics of ridership/frequency/network size in the largest possible cities.

Munich is quite similiar in size and has a good network aswell.

I think they may be doing more than one?

The Cable C1 which is the first gondola / telecabin in the Paris network will act as both a full line and a proof of concept. Following the results after operating for a few months, they'll probably decide on a few other possible lines and if they use the same equipment or not. There were about 12 or 13 cable lines being primarily studied, probably a good half of them seriously studied and waiting on Cable C1's first months of operations for these projects to be advanced, modified or abandoned. Hence the name Cable C1, leaving infinite naming space for other lines. Most of them being "end-of-line" extensions or "connectors" not requiring heavy means like metro or RER, having to cross obstacles, etc. IDFM and RATP are also studying operations and results from the Téléo 3S gondola / telecabin in Toulouse for reference (less frequency but much larger cabins and heavier infrastructure). So, we may see a number of "Cable Cx" lines blossoming in the coming years following the results and satisfaction (or not) that Cable C1 brings. Some of the main obstacles that Cable lines would be used to cross are rail yards, and terrain, obviously. And 2 projects that keep getting proposed are a short Cable line over the Seine river between Gare d'Austerlitz and Gare de Lyon and another one between the Saint-Denis Pleyel metro hub on the West side and the RER D & Transilien H stations on the East side of the tracks. But the latter would require such throughput that I doubt many cable system could handle such crowds, we'll see. None of these 2 were part of the "official" list of proposed cable lines. A short list of the proposed cable lines that I remember : A Pont de Sèvres Vélizy connector line with something like 8K to 10K passengers per hour and large cabins between M9 & M15 Pont de Sèvres station (and tram T2 across the bridge) on one side and the Vélizy 2 shopping center and tram T6 station on the other side of the hill / plateau. A line serving the Saclay plateau to complement GPE's line M18 between RER B's Guichet station, M18 line and Gif-sur-Yvette. A line between RER C's Brétigny station, RER D's Évry station and the Brétigny air base that is (or was ?) being repurposed. La Défense la Garenne Colombes, I don't remember the details. Goussainville CDG Airport (although I don't know how they'd mix cable lift pylons, cables and approach paths), possibly to complement M17. Romainville Bobigny, this may seem a bit redundant with tram T1 and M11 Eastern extensions but it would be to complement the extensions by linking Romainville city hall on top of the plateau / hill to the probable future M5 infill station called Bobigny La Folie (there's space set aside for that station along the canal) where T11 Express extension will have an interchange station, at a lower level were the canal flows. A line in Bagnolet, probably to enhance the city's transit and better link parts of the city to heavy transit, between M3's Gallieni and the Bagnolet / Montreuil plateau if I recall correctly. And there was a handful of proposed cable lines in the farther West reaching parts of the Paris urban area in the 78th department (Yvelines) towards Mantes, Conflans, Achères, les Mureaux, etc. Some are proposed to enhance the reach of the Western extension of RER E that's due to open in a few months. With huge, metro territory capacity. And there's a Mantes Limay line being studied too. I think I have an exhaustive list and details about this dozen of proposed cable lines in my files somewhere if anyone's interested. Voilà! Hope this helped.

​@@RMTransit I forgot to address the comment above directly to you, it's a rough list of the proposed cable lines from memory that answers your question. I think you'll find it interesting. But keep in mind that was part of a "bulk proposal" that is inevitably trimmed later and from which only a selection comes to fruition. Anyway, the naming "Cable C1" clearly states that, at IDFM, they are seriously considering other cable lines. From what I gathered, a good half of them are seriously studied, which may end up with 3 to 5 real & firm projects. Only time will tell, but the various proposals had very diverse states of "refinement" / definition. The Bobigny Romainville proposed cable line for example, has very clear goals and prerequisites (M5 la Folie new infill station, T11 Express planned extension). While others like La Défense La Garenne Colombes are a lot fuzzier.

@@RMTransit they looked at mutiple lines, but AFAIK they have only decided on one for now

Singapore has a good system, but its not perfect!

The wayfinding has improved a lot in my opinion, and I reallllly value improvement!

Underground passageways are often quite dirty but the signage itself is really good, except in « travaux » period when signs are displaced.

We recently had trouble finding the RER platform at Gare de Lyon for transfer to Gare du Nord. Needed better signing in the sub-surface concourse for RER and Metro. In general it would be a good idea if people who organise signing occasionally walked through with people who'd never been to the station before. But yes, generally an excellent multi-mode network.

Unfortunately, ramps can only be so steep, so they need more space at entrances…

Ramps take up a lot of spaces on the ground level, so it's not always the best solution especially in dense urban areas.

Elevator helps with moving luggage, ramps don’t that much

​@@szymex22 hmm, they do actually; rather at a much higher capacity than an elevator.

@@mokyiuhei There's hybrid ramp/escalator solutions; which can help even wheelchairs to accomodate but I haven't seen them being used in very heavily dense usage scenarios; though usually I have seen people preferring ramp both with or without luggage. The funny thing my city does, which is very weird but kinda good results is have a little mixture of stairs and ramp. Though it pretty much wrecks the question of accessibility for many users; but well it increases capacity massively as well as makes traversing more easier for still a very large chunk. We still have spammed it at many but not all monorail and metro stations here despite being very dense.

Sydney also has many car-centric suburbs which are poorly served by public transit - either that's due to a lack of funding (West/Southwest Sydney) or NIMBYism (Northern Beaches, Eastern Suburbs).

Melbourne and Sydney are horrendous if you leave the 10km radius outside of the city but if I had to choose between the two I'd definetely go Sydney since you can reliably go between suburbs.

As a London resident I really appreciate the transport systems but still will admit that there some problems because parts of the tube system are 160 years old and different lines were originally built by different companies in competion. Jago Hazzard does some good videos on the history

With the SNCF connect app, you can pay directly at the turnstile with your phone in Paris, no need for a ticket or NavigoCard

The thing is that the vast majority of the Paris network is underground and was modeled to create many one-way corridors to access platforms, and the conjunction of depth and "quirkiness" of the network really doesn't help. So it's a lot more complex and horrendously expensive to upgrade the historical metro for full accessibility. A primary audit estimated in 2014 that it would cost 4 to 6 billion euros to make the historical metro accessible. That's only for the metro and is a pretty conservative forecast. A more realistic one would estimate the upgrade as costly as 8 to 10 billions. Anyway, it is very high if not at the very top of the list of requests from user advocacy groups. They've already upgraded for accessibility something like 230+ RER & Transilien stations plus a few historical metro stations. And there are roughly 900 escalators and several hundreds of elevators only for the Grand Paris Express expansion. KONE, has 233 machines on order for the GPE expansion till 2026 (81 elevators for 8 stations and a few emergency exits of line M15 plus 152 escalators for 8 stations of line M16, and there are at least 68 new stations on the GPE). KONE is only the second or third supplier of lifting solutions and the GPE project extends up to 2030. Schindler is the main provider if I recall correctly, with a first batch of roughly 250 escalators, 135 elevators and two dozens of emergency exit lifts. Just to give you an idea, the new interchange station where lines M14 & M15 cross in the South (Villejuif Institut Gustave Roussy) has 32 escalators and 16 elevators, while the new Northern interchange station where these lines also connect (Saint-Denis Pleyel) has 56 escalators. That's 620 escalators only for line M15... So now imagine what it would take to upgrade the 300+ stations of the core metro network, knowing most, if not all platforms would require dedicated elevators and escalators as there's no interlining of the Paris metro lines and shared platforms are rare. Right now, all the stations of the current line M14 are fully accessible, the 14km extension is due to open Spring 2024 (fully accessible of course). A couple of historical stations and all the new stations of M11's Eastern extension are accessible and set to open in a few months. The historical network will take a long time to be made accessible...

Paris is a bigger system, but they could absolutely be doing more!

Another point I forgot to mention in my previous reply : making a system accessible is great, but not very useful if there's no space left in the trains for wheelchairs, strollers, etc. Currently the system is packed, and the priority was to expand it first to slightly alleviate the load on the existing network. But the GPE daily ridership forecast was recently revised from 2 to 3 million riders, so they're not sure if it will reduce the load enough on the existing network. I've seen people in wheelchairs sometimes wait 3, 4 or 5 consecutive trains to board on line M14 during peak hours. Simply because there wasn't a single square-foot of free space, the wheelchair designated spot was filled with standing passengers and trains only stopped for a few seconds, not leaving enough time for on-board passengers to reorganize. And that's a line with 1m20s between trains on peak... So, imagine how it would be on M13 where they have "pushers" on peak hours like in Tokyo. In the meantime, they've made the bus lines a lot more accessible to make up for the lack of accessibility on most of the metro. The cost + depth & quirkiness + heavy ridership make the upgrade to full accessibility of the historical metro network very slow, utterly complicated and expensive. We'll probably see several other non-GPE expansions (fully accessible) and a few conversions to full automation of historical lines before a great level of accessibility.

​​@@KyrilPGt still is pretty disappointing that M14 is the only accessible line. Paris does not have to make all stations accessible immediately, but they should definitely make the most used stations and the interchanges accessible. It is important to have accessible stations. They could try to make 1/3 of the old stations accessible, so that you can use the Metro even if the nearest station is not accessible. Look at how Berlin did it. They started in the late 80ies adding lifts to one station after another. It will have taken 40 years when they are ready, but let's keep in mind, they also started at 0% just like Paris. Yes, Berlin has fewer percentage of stations underground, but they also managed to make underground stations accessible. They wanted to have all stations accessible by 2022 and they failed. But at least they are trying. And it is just the U-Bahn. Almost all S-Bahn and regional rail stations are accessible too. (I think only 5 S-Bahn stations in Berlin are still missing and only a single one within the S-Bahn ring). And it is not just Berlin. Hamburg and Munich have almost all of their S-Bahn and U-Bahn stations accessible too, including older underground stations. And even random rural stations in Germany have lifts and tactile paving. Paris does not have to make all stations accessible. But they could at least try to make more of them accessible. Accessibility is not just for wheelchair users. Lifts also benefit old people, people with strollers or with heavy luggage

Paris metro stations are often deeper than on the Berlin U-bahn. The system is a lot more dense and room is very constrained. That's what it was a lot easier for Berlin to make its network accessible. However it's true that Paris is behind on this subject and should do more.

I don't even care if it's free or not, but a fixed subscription for unlimited public transit. Here in Germany the 49€ ticket let's you ride all transit in the whole country except for the IC and ICE trains. And even those in some rare scenarios

@@jan-lukas The 49€ ticket is great and makes public transit a lot cheaper, specially for long trips. It's still not accessible to many people though. A lot of people, for example homeless people who have to rely on donations from strangers, just can't afford 49€ a month.They should still be able to use public transit though.

No one takes care of stuff that is free. Reece actually made a video on it, and the point boils down to “if you don’t pay for it, you don’t own it, you don’t treasure it, you subconsciously start to treat it worse because you didn’t contribute money to it”. Trash, littering, homeless ppl riding it, crime, all of that increases when the system is free.

Based on the critieria, I'm not so sure Hong Kong deserves an honorable mention. While the MTR was world-leading for quite a long time, other systems appear to have caught up. The historic double-decker tram route on HK island isn't accessible by any stretch of the imagination, and there's really nothing on a scale between heavy rail and buses inside the core of the city. There's still a huge swatch of the south side of Hong Kong Island only accessible by bus, and there are corridors where one sits in traffic composed entirely of double-decker and minibuses, which indicates the need for something heavier. The Nathan Road corridor in Kowloon really needs a tram line

I love are on transit for sure!

+1 for me. Its history as a narrow gauge railway results in a tram-train implementation is IMO between Karlsruhe (a railway network using trams) and Cologne/Bonn's (acting as an extension of the networks of two separate cities) with sprinkles of its own gimmick (like being part of a separate railway network instead of sharing tracks with others).

When I look it up on Wikipedia Mannheim + Ludwigshafen + Heidelberg is only like 150km. And even that is a strange metric, Cologne + Bonn is nearly 325km (198+125 to be exact) of interconnected network...

Actually, Vienna might take the top spot for me. It is suburban rail, metro, trams and buses. All well integrated and clean. Amsterdam (or any Dutch city) is not far behind - and Barcelona is making big headways with the tram expansions. London has a lot of potential but is still too messy, same thing for Copenhagen. Perhaps Stockholm is another good example, with the exception that like other cities, they unfortunately ripped up their trams and have only reinstated one line in the city centre so far. As Reece said, it’s hard finding a perfect system. But the long and short of it is, Vienna is a very good candidate because it has an impressive, well-kept, well-functioning, well-integrated, punctual, clean and (due to political subsidies) fairly affordable transit system. I think Paris fits well with French idealism, it has a lot of big ideas and potential but lacks good execution. In this regard, Vienna strikes a balance between bold ideas and practicality. Good choice!

I think I’d actually give Oslo a spot behind Vienna. It’s system is also very well functioning in all the ways Reece mentioned and unlike Copenhagen or Stockholm, Oslo kept its trams whilst also expanding the metro network. The bus fleet is also one of the most modern in Europe and service levels are incredibly high regardless of which mode.

Yeah, yikes, you are wildly biased of have just never left Canada. As someone who lives in Toronto and lived in Paris in the past, transit in Toronto is far, far, far too limited. I lived in Paris in 2015 and I could get nearly everywhere I wanted to go in about 35 minutes, which was usually 10 minutes of walking, 15 minutes waiting for and riding on subway, then 10 minutes walking. This was possible because there are about 15 subway lines in the 85 km^2 area of the central city. Nearly every point-to-point trip can be made by at least one line, and there is usually multiple subway options if you allow for a 10 minute walk on either end. And they pretty much always had headways of 5 minutes or less, meaning you never have to think about schedules and there is no real waiting. In comparison, Toronto has 2 real subway lines (or 3, if you are really generous and count Yonge-University-Spadina as two separate lines, which it kinda is). Scarborough Line 3 doesn't really count since it is just an extension of Line 2, and Sheppard Line 4 doesn't really count because it is basically a branch service of Line 1. These 3 lines cover an area of 375 km^2. The density of high-frequency rail lines in Paris is 22 times higher than in Toronto. Moreover, the stations in Toronto are far more spread out - you can't realistically walk between many stations in Toronto. In order for Toronto to have service on a similar level to Paris, it would need about 60 subway lines, all operating on 5 minute headways. That should give you a sense of how far behind Toronto is.

I don't agree, I think it needs some proper rapid transit, a direct rail link to downtown Toronto, and better integrated local services

Both have an interesting take on Paris mobility expansion and changes. The bicycle revolution at lightning speed (for urban projects) and the humongous transit expansion (360+ kilometers of new lines with 200km for the Grand Paris Express itself, the rest split between non-GPE metro extensions, new tram lines and extensions, new proper busway BRT lines and at least one gondola / telecabin). Plus projects at the study stage and not yet granted. And there's also the various integrations of the "RER Vélo" and "Vélopolitain", both bike advocacy groups ideas for doubling the transit networks with proper bicycle lanes.

I read somewhere else that njb does not show solutions for North America ....I find that remarkable .. Many videos of njb debunk us car excuse myths and dutch/european bike transit myths . And shows how many dutch streets/neighbourhoods have been retro fitted from car oriented to bike/walk/transit oriented . He shows how shared car ridership can help live without owning a car. How Oulu keeps bike ridership in the winter. Or why US transit often underperform and how it could be better.. The strong towns series give solutions how cities can get more financial healthy . And these are align with more active streets. In his videos are so many lessons that a city council can apply to become better , less car dependent , more healthy communities ... The fact that millions are now able to explain why and how stroads and strip malls are disastruous is already a massive step. The solutions for a city could be written on a A4 paper. And most of them ar And ciries like Guelph , Evanston or Montreal are doing it already to some extent . IMO njb shows more manageable solutions ..

We ( BC ) are way behind in Public Transit. We need to double our bus fleet by buying extra 500 buses every year for the next 6 years.

Hi from Los Angeles! One of the biggest things holding back La metro is the safety. It has a bad reputation, but also a bad reality.

Safety is critical, but as you say systems basically will not function as intended without it

In Chicago, safety is a massive issue with the CTA. I've seen way more things than anyone should on a transit service, and many people avoid certain lines and branches at parts of the day, or even altogether.

@@RMTransitHe is not talking about safety in the mechanical or maintenance sense. The dogwhistle is real.

Yeah but there's a difference between safety and the feeling of safety or lack thereof. Transit has a bad reputation in many US cities for not being safe. When in reality commuters are much more likely to be harmed or killed on the road than in the subway or light rail. They just feel safer in their "tanks" while being much much much more exposed to real harm or death. There was a bit of a media storm a few days ago because a person was pushed onto the tracks by a mentally ill guy and killed by a RER train in Greater Paris. Yet, that's still a fraction of the risks of driving. The vast majority of homeless people are just peaceful and harmless. Just like with planes, passengers freak out at the slightest turbulence but have no problem driving by a deadly pileup on the road. There are ways to improve both actual safety and the feeling of safety : multiangle cameras in all train cars, full train length walk-through gangways, platform screen doors, AI behavioral detection and intercom intervention to prevent issues, etc.

One of the main obstacles is the police prefecture who has such nuisance power with many things, especially cycling infrastructure. A substantial part of Paris streets, boulevards, bridges, etc. is not under the city's control but under the police prefecture's control. The prefecture makes it a habit of opposing the city hall's decisions and ruining new cycling infrastructure. Especially on bridges or certain boulevards where the prefecture forced the city to build less practical bike infrastructure or only allowed for painted lanes, etc. It's a never-ending battle between the city and prefecture... The "PP" (police prefecture) likes when nothing changes and drags its feet for anything and everything. Just like the mayor's office has been asking, or should I say, *begging* for something like 20 years the police prefecture for them to select agents with at least some language skills for the most touristic spots. But the police prefecture doesn't care one bit and keeps sending officers / agents that can't burp a single word of English or any other language. I've seen entire police squads patrolling the Eiffel Tower or Louvres Museum areas and not being able to speak one word of any other language than French. While most people working in these areas are capable of speaking other languages. Only the police can't. So, for the changes in street infrastructure in Paris, the hardest part is the constant arm wrestling with the prefecture. Once that part is over, the actual building of the new infrastructure is almost easy.

there are a lot of pickpocketers in new york

@@TurdBoi-tf5lf It's much worse in Paris

You don't need AI for that

I think he is speaking on a more global and multimodal level. For example, Tokyo has a rail oriented transit system. Probably one of the, if not the best rail system in the world and certainly better than Paris. But about other modes, such as trams and buses, they are not even close to European cities. Fare integration in Tokyo is a problem system wide, because of multiple private operators which adds complexity for the passengers. Paris has been able to integrate all sorts of different modes where they were needed and have a comprehensive fare system. If we are talking about transit planning, how the network has been developed, I think Paris is better. If we are just talking about who has the best rail system, I agree, Tokyo is probably better.

@@equilat Couldn't have said it better myself, I wanted to take a very holistic look - Tokyo misses a couple important things despite having an incredible rail network!

For residents, Tokyo transit is no so bad as it is for visitors. Busses actually are well integrated with rail. If you know what you are doing, single tickets for multiple companies work well.

Same. Thank goodness I got to the station closest to my Airbnb in time on the VERY last train.

@@equilat Isn't Tokyo's fare system pretty comprehensive because of Japan's universal IC cards?

from a german perspective i think karlsruhe, potsdam, heidelberg and nice felt good to navigate, but they are also very differently designed from na cities

why elevated? Underground is really cool imo

@@paragnainani (tw; long /s and personal preference) it's cool to have some underground anyway so It feels much more open above especially in downtown, and its quiet. but i feel like seeing the city from above outweighs it so hard, as opposed to if most of the train windows are facing a blank wall. I went to Toronto subway (smth ive heard of since childhood) for the first time and it was underwhelming how I wasnt able to see more of this big city going downtown. I grew up w the vancouv3r skytrain so being able to sightsee and roleplayung as captain at the front was peak vhildhood.whaddya think? If I grewup somewhere not having even chicagos equivilant for thst matter, those probably wouldn't be make me the transit oriented teen rn (dat timing I just woke up and your reply was just 55mins ago