Moscow Metro

Description
In total, the Moscow Metro has 282.5 km of rail, 12 lines and 173 stations; on a normal weekday it carries 9.0 million passengers. Passenger traffic is considerably lower on weekends bringing the average daily passenger traffic during the year to 7.1 million passengers per day. Moscow Metro is a state-owned enterprise.  Each day some 9915 trains operate.

Each line is identified by a number, a name and a colour. The voice announcements refer to lines by name, while in colloquial usage they are mostly referred by colour, except the Lyublinskaya Line (number 10) and the Kakhovskaya Line (number 11) which have been assigned shades of green similar to that of the Zamoskvoretskaya Line (number 2). Most lines run radially through the city, except the Koltsevaya Line (number 5), which is a 20-km-long ring connecting all the radial lines and a few smaller lines outside. On all lines, travellers can determine the direction of the train by the gender of the announcer: on the ring line, a male voice indicates clockwise travel, and a female voice counter-clockwise. On the radial lines, travellers heading toward the centre of Moscow will hear male-voiced announcements, and travellers heading away will hear female-voiced announcements (a good mnemonic rule here is: ‘the boss calls you to work; the wife calls you home’). In addition, there is an abundance of signs showing all the stations that can be reached in a given direction.

The system is almost entirely built underground, although some lines (SL, GZL, FL) cross the Moskva river and SL also crosses the Yauza river by bridge. Other exceptions include the Filyovskaya Line which has a long surface section (seven stations) between the stations Kievskaya and Molodyozhnaya and the Butovskaya Light Metro Line (L1) with 4 elevated stations. Two further surface-level stations exist on the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line and on the Tagansko-Krasnopresnenskaya Line.

The Moscow Metro is open from 5:35 until 1:04 (the time may vary at different stations according to first/last train schedule). During peak hours, trains run roughly every 90 seconds on most lines; about every two to three and a half minutes during the day, and every six to ten minutes late at night. As trains are so frequent, there is no timetable available to passengers.


Moscow Metro Lines
The Moscow Metro lines are all colour coded as shown on the interactive Metro Map and the lines are generally referred to buy their colour as opposed to their name.

For the link to a static Metro Map you can download and print, click here ...


Ticketing
Tickets are available for a fixed number of journeys, irrespective of the distance of travel and the number of lines changed. Monthly and yearly tickets are also available.

The Moscow Metro uses magnetic cards (contact cards) for tickets with a fixed number of journeys (up to 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 60 and 70 journeys for 30 days from the day of first journey). Magnetic cards were introduced in 1993 as a test. From 1996 to 1998 magnetic cards were used as unlimited tickets. For all other cases Moscow Metro uses a Transport Card (contactless smartcards). Smartcards are available as 'unlimited' and 'social' tickets. The unlimited card can be programmed for 30, 90 and 365 days. The social cards are free for pensioners and other privileged citizens of the City of Moscow; school pupils and students have them at a heavily reduced price. Transport Cards were introduced in 1998 along with a new type of magnetic card. The Moscow Metro became the first metro system in Europe to fully implement smart cards on 1 September 1998. The sale of tokens ended on 1 January 1999 and they stopped being accepted in February 1999.

Fares
For a schedule of the current fares, please click here …


Further Information
For further information on the Moscow Metro in English, please click on the relevant link:

1. The Rules of Travel on the Moscow Metro - click here ...

2. Key Performance Indicators of the Moscow Metro - click here ...

3. Future expansion of the Moscow Metro - click here ...

4. Full historical and current specifications of the lines and stations of the Moscow Metro - click here ...