When I visited Athens, I was shockingly impressed by just how effective and useful the metro was with only three lines. I was able to get nearly everywhere I wanted to go, and it was quite quick, especially compared to the horrendous traffic there.
As a daily commuter on the Athens public transport system i must say that it is fairly efficient. However my main complaints, that most others share, it the fact that 1) Buses are infrequent and unreliable, especially in the northern suburbs that are highly populated areas with no metro connectivity, 2) 24hour service is not a thing especially on the weekends with buses, confusingly, running until 21:30, the metro until 1:30am and suburban rail until 23:30, 3) the tracks on the Syntagma - Ethniki Amyna section on M3 are in need of maintenance for quite some time so the trains run at a reduced speed and 4) Line M1 is in desperate need of maintenance and new rolling stock (recently, 3 trains from M2 and M3, the first generation metro trains, had to be transferred to M1 in order to support it). Overall, yes we have a solid public transport network, but there is still work to be done. Also thank you for this video! I have been manifesting it for quite some time now!
"buses are infrequent and unreliable" As a daily user of about 5 bus lines myself, I wouldn't say so. The lines which I use have pretty frequent service. As for reliability, if you have the app, it's not unreliable. It indicates when buses start and at in how many minutes the bus will arrive at your stop. What's bad about the network it its fleet, which is pretty old. But even that will be fixed, as already the first 140 new buses have arrived, and many others will come. Also, yeah the extent of the services are really short, until 23:00 pm at best. For the metro, it's not the entirety, but very specific sections, as in the one rail junction between Katehaki and Panormou stations, and that between Syntagma and Evangelismos stations.
It largely depends on which bus lines are you talking about as some lines are better than others, not that you are wrong, because there are days where the bus seems inefficient. As for the metro I agree with your points.
in the northern suburbs, people think that building metro is ridiculus. They dont want a metro built in their neighbourhood, as they consider cars superior. I know because i have asked. Also, all over Athens people are complaining about metro being built, especially in Exarheia. Although i consider having metro being built in your neighbourhood is a big W as you do not have to rely on car to even go to the metro. It's not uncommon for people to drive a car or carpool to the metro station (especially Doukissis Plakentias (actually shown in ~ 6:27)), as its the closest station to many northern suburbs). Also, the time to go to the centre from an area with just cars and busses is nearly one hour without using a car, and it would be cut in half with the metro. Also, athens is among the densest european cities, so park n ride makes even less sense that it does in USA or Canada.
@@Pan472 Well, I've heard that the newly arrived chinese e-buses cannot be charged when they're in the bus depot, because there have been no electric stations bought to charge them. Lol - But I can't say how reliable this info is.
I remember suggesting the video a year ago! As a greek myself, I can confirm that the analysis is very accurate and to the point. Regarding the Thessaloniki metro, our government says that it's ready and that it will open to the public this fall, but I have my suspicions...
Something that didn't come through your video is the super simple connection between the airport and Piraeus which makes for island vacationing that is so simple. My wife and I were in Greece last year and we didn't need to take a cab to get to our ferry.
@@michaelpapadopoulos6054 I've contacted the company, Elliniko Metro, which is responsible for the rolling stock. I don't see it coming anywhere in the near future.
@@Pan472Oh cool! do talk about what they've told you. I am aware that the government will very often talk about doing things and then not do them. I'm still waiting for any news about the undergrounding of line 1 from Neo Faliro to Peiraeus but I don't see it happening any time soon. Currently it takes like 6 minutes to travel 1 station.
@@michaelpapadopoulos6054They say they're now holding talks in order to facilitate the making of the Faliro-Piraeus section underground. But given how complex it actually is, as it involves cutting off a very busy section which has frequent service, and replacing it, I doubt it'll be implemented any time soon.
Athens didn't just rip out their historic tram system, they converted it to an electric trolleybus system. In fact, the Athens trolleybus system is the largest of all countries of the former Western Bloc, and the largest in the EU. That also means Athens has had an electric bus system for much longer than many systems introducings BEBs now.
Thessaloniki metro allegedly was supposed to open in 2020, then 2021, then 2022, summer of 2023, no nevermind summer of 2024, no November 2024 (First hole dug was 1986)
Rome suffers from the same issue. Many years ago, they were supposed to build a new overpass for one of the suburban rail lines, but they found ancient remains and the project was frozen for 3-4 years whilst they looked for more and cleared up the affected area. The same thing is happening with the new Metro C line that goes through Rome's city centre. The more they dig, the more ancient artefacts they find, the more the project gets delayed.
@@goatgamer001 They say November 2024, but that's only the central line. All of the west and some of the east have no metro connection (the east has another line being built rn)
Speaking as a Thessalonian: watching the local meme of the Thessaloniki metro construction state reaching global status is both hilarious and depressing at the same time.
Incredible video and thank you for properly utilising the footage! It's so nice to see Athens finally represented here and getting a comprehensive and positive evaluation! As a note of importance: every metro station is thankfully linked to multiple bus and trolleybus lines, which act as feeders for the metro network and despite their aging fleet, still have very frequent services, especially compared to any North American city. Plus, along with all other rail, the fares are united and used in the metro and the bus as well! Note 2: the metro receives more than 2.5 million riders per day. It's traffic is much bigger than well above 1.5 million you could say! But we only rely on ticket data, which don't count in all days and count only certain periods in these said days. Note 3: It wasn't mentioned, although it's very, very important for any visitor, but trains to and from the Airport arrive every 36 minutes. So, especially if you're coming from the direction of Piraeus, if you're not already in an airport train, you'll have to disembark at Plakentias and wait there, or take a suburban train as an alternative, if possible. Line 3 has the direct connection between the port, the centre and the airport but service through the entirely of the line is very infrequent. Service is very, very frequent only up to Doukissis Plakentias station, for which you have to be vigilant for the following: as it's the intermediate terminal of line 3, many times trains are averted to the direction of Piraeus so as to evade the track change after Plakentias and make services automatically more frequent. So, you have to go to the opposite platform in that case. I think these should have been added in the video, but other than that it addressed all the main elements. Good job @rmtransit!
@@RMTransitMy pleasure Reece. I hope that at one point in the future, these additions will be included in edits, as it's really helpful, especially for visitors to Athens, to know everything if they're to rely exclusively on public transport. Thank you once again for the video.
I love the zoom out map at 6:25- It really helps put things into perspective- I sometimes wish you had a scale bar in the bottom corner though. Thanks for the amazing videos!
@greekcomenterperson446 It didn't catch fire. This was a drill not an actual fire. The metro is running well, the only problem being the ticket service but it is somewhat expected when you have hundreds of thousands of people trying to get a ticket or a card on the first 4 days , it will get better as some days pass
Athenians colloquially call line one of the metro the "Electrical", since it was one of the first appliances of electricity in Greece. So I always like to say that "I was doing tasks in electrical" when I was going somewhere by line one 😂 Greetings from Pireaus, Greece 🇬🇷
hungarian has something very similar, a tram is called 'villamos', except it's even better, because being the language purists that they are, they created that word to avoid loaning it from other languages, so etymologically it means essentially 'lightning-having', which i find absolutely amazing. and having been a part of hungary at the time, slovak does the same thing with 'električka' as opposed to czech 'tramvaj'
@@franzjosef7728 hahah, nice one! They're actually called leoforio (leoforia in the plural), which literally means "people bringer". It's actually a really interesting word, because people is usually laos, from the Ancient Doric/Spartan Greek laos. But leos was the ancient Athenian word, which was supplanted completely in all uses except for this word. This word was obviously created during the Katharevousa period.
We call it the electric train, electric for short. It was the first electric line and it was an easy way to describe it. There were also thermal trains at the same era.
Dobre Den! I was quite impressed by the Sofia metro when I went. (At least to the extent I got to see) The Bulgarians did a good job with their metro too
Finally a video about the transportation about Athens !😍😍 But here some miss points: 1. The Athens metro stations are also museums, they host antiquities in some. 2.the line 4 is gonna be a fully automated systems of driverless trains. 3. The suburban system is gonna be extended to the port of Rafina and the town of Lauvrio Anyways, good video!
@@jim212gr8 we are talking about the proastiakos , the suburban wich is (giaose/trainitalia/hellenic trains) the metro in thessaloniki is Attiko metro so is different . Of course one day the metro of thessaloniki has to be finished at some point obviously. But here we are talking about the transportation of Athens the capital so is much more important .
Omg you’ve been to Athens! My partner’s originally from Athens so we go every year. Their metro is one of my favourites in the world, lines 2 and 3 so clean and efficient and I love all the trains. Even line 1 is great, being old and even with the trains covered in graffiti it gives it so much character
I remember wooden seats on Line 1 in 1980, trolley buses, an aggressively driven bus via Syngrou to the coast, and suffocating traffic at rush hour in the city center such that I got out and walked. No tram then so I have watched videos!
Great video about my city, RM Transit! Have been a fan since last year (subed on Nebula) Everything said is very on point, and its awsome to feature in the video all the quirks and features of our systems Some notable additions about transit in athens: 1. Most, if not all, metro stations feature some sort of archaeological pieces on display, because wherever you dig in athens, you find things. From simple artifacts to entire buildings, especially in the stations in the center of athens (syntagma, akropoli, monastiraki) and piraeus. 2. The first underground stations of line 1 (omonoia and victoria), built in the 1930s, have interior design inspired from the berlin u bahn, with yellow and green tiling, something very different compared to the rest of the stations. 3. The new yellow line (4), while not big in distance, will connect some of the most densely populated neighbourhoods of not just athens, but europe in general. 4. The modern Athens Tram, while great, is not a very popular means of transport because it is comparatively slow. The coastline line is very popular in the summer, but the athens center line is not at all. When in planning, it was supposed to have the right of way at intersections, but it never got implemented. Unfortunately, the on-ground planning in athens is still very car-centric, and more expansions of the tram network in athens center and piraeus, while planned, are not scheduled at least for this decade. To give you some context, the whole project of the modern tram network was a mandate in order to host the olympics in 2004 (thats when most of the network was built). 5. The suburban rail, as you said, is the "forgotten child" of athens transit systems. Mostly built in 2004-07, it still has not caught up to its full potential, even though it connects many important sectors, suburbs, port, airport, and center of the city. Reasons why can be traced to the general problems of greek railways, but new stations, expansions and lines are planned till the end of this decade. Those will connect 2 satellite ports, more suburbs, and industrial complexes. (earliest date was 2026, but we needed to divert funds to fix the mainline and branchlines in Central Greece that were damaged due to flooding last September). There is also a literal bottleneck north of Athens central station, because we are upgrading the existing old 2-line ground-level corridor to a new underground 4-line to fit more train traffic. This, along with a general train shortage, make short-term service upgrades almost impossible. When all works and upgrades are complete, train frequency in the center corridor should rival the metro lines, boosting ridership. Definetely check back in 3 years! All in all, it was a great explanatory video, not just for transit nerds around the world but for us locals too. Greetings from Greece!
well said! About your last point, I wish they went ahead with undergrounding the corridor all the way to piraeus. It would free up so much space and we would essentially get an extra metro line for a fraction of the cost since the right of way is already there. Also they should really build an interchange station with line 3 at kerameikos . I suspect it would become the de facto central station of the network since it's at the edge of the walkable touristy downtown part of Athens.
@@michaelpapadopoulos6054 γενικότερα μεσα στον αστικο ιστό της αθήνας, τα μονα σχέδια για τον σιδηροδρομικό διάδρομο ειναι η ανισοπεδοποίηση μέχρι ρέντη (με υπογειοποίηση στ-λαρίσης-ρουφ και σταση στο κεραμεικό και ανισοπεδοποίηση της διάβασης στην κωσταντινουπόλεως/πειραιώς), και η ολοκλήρωση του ΣΚΑ μαζί με τη σήραγγα αχαρνών ωστε τα υπεραστικά τρένα να παρακάμπτουν την πόλη και να γίνει το ΣΚΑ ο μεγαλος συγκοινωνιακός κόμβος που είχε σχεδιαστεί. Δεν προβλέπονται περεταίρω υπογειοποιήσεις και κόλπα, και μεταξύ μας, δεν χρειάζονται
I went to Athens back in January and I used the metro a whole lot to get around, very convenient, it was rather clean and people use it alot. The airport line features space for your luggage which was also pretty cool
It has finally happened!!! Very nice video explaining the system quite extensively and even mentioning the trolleybus system, which is quite long! Glad my clips of the tram proved useful, you integrated them better than i expected in the video!
The Olympics always demands new transit systems are built, you hope when they build them that they're future proofed (I.e. serve a purpose post-games), it's one lasting legacy that many host cities do get, if they get it right
@@dontcomply3976 the Olympics were a symptom of what brought bankruptcy, not a cause. With a debt of roughly 300 billion € around 2009, the 8.5 billion that Olympic Games cost, didn’t destroy the economy and not being awarded the games (and not paying the associated costs) wouldn’t have saved it either.
0:16 As of 30 November 2024, Thessaloniki Metro opened to the public! I’ve been using it everyday since and I’m proud to say it’s the best metro I’ve ever been in! It’s only one line with 15 stops but it’s very contemporary and useful for getting to the city center. It’s very crowded at the moment but people seem to like it a lot! Why not, make a video about the newly constructed Thessaloniki Metro!
An other fun fact about Athens: it has the largest trollybus network in the western world (which makes sence for such a mountainous city) and the diesel busses are some of the older ones in regular use in europe, featuring O 405s from the 1990s - it is the right kind of weather for them not to rust and the greeks have always been of the persuasion that if it ain't broke, don't fix it and with decent maintanance busses can last for ever. There are generaly speaking lots of classic cars and trucks and busses in Greece, just adds to the apeal of the country as a holliday destination if that's the sort of ting one is in to.
Nahh, it's more like a decade of austerity made it so there weren't enough funds to replace the ageing fleet. You can tell, because with the begining of the coronavirus and the subsequent relaxation of budgeting requirements, the process to proccure new busses basically begun immediately.
@@MrVlad0978 The first new buses have actually arrived just today in fact. And the city is going to get a total of almost 600 new buses by 2025, as it seems.
The fleet is really terrible in some occasions. For example, infamous bus line 608 uses some of the city's worst vehicles despite being one of the busiest.
5:01 The lights are only in a handful of stations. Also, since you mentioned the national rail lines, it must be said that since the Tempi tragedy hardly anyone trusts them anymore. Honestly I don't even blame them. It truly is one of the most horrific things that have happened in Greece's recent history...
@@RMTransit its nice to be a positive person in general but that guy mentioned a problem that has caused accidents and killed people and it is still ongoing and not fixed. not only in tempi in national lines but in athens in line 1 there has been an accident in recent years killing workers. the fact that you thank for the info about the lights and you completely ignore the info about the security of the whole system means those lights are more important for you and that is the point where your positivity becomes toxicity. you have zero respect for the people that died. disgusting.
@@cinqbuns you are disgusting for assuming the worst w/o having context I also don't have the context, but I consider some possibilities for them to not reply 1. They already heard it from another comment 2. They already knew it since was a huge issue a year ago do you know if these possibilities are false? how can you be so sure? is cursing others going to make you feel better as a person? is that the image you want foreigners to have of us Greek people?
@@arjix8738 ok i will put all the wrong things under the carpet to feel better as a person. it will slow my evolution but i guess its ok , none cares about evolution. ty for your advice.
Also, for a hot take, as a passenger at least, I find the Ansaldobreda Sirios to be be pretty decent. The air-conditioning always works (important for Athens) and I find the longitudinal seating of the Sirios above the bogies to be more comfortable than the pretty cramped tranverse above-the-bogies seats of the Citadises.
The sirios do have more practical seating but the ones we have in athens are sooo worn out and honestly not consistently clean on the inside. Also, the AC doesn't always work.
Great video and I was waiting for this one for a long time, living in Athens myself. However there was 1 main point that wasn't addressed in the video. That is the fact that building a metro in Athens is a whole different level of difficulty compared to other cities because modern Athens is built directly above the ancient city meaning you're guaranteed to find important archaeological sites when excavating so archaeological investigation have to be a part of planning. This makes the Athens metro similar only to Rome compared to which I think it has a much better spanning and it it wasn't for the very low budgeting and the economic crisis that basically led to bankruptcy in the 2010s, the metro would already be in its 5th line with more than 150 stations. The Thessaloniki metro is about to finally open in November, after the archaeological findings, the fact the metro is been built in unstable subsurface and the economic crisis that completely stopped the project for years at a time, pushed the completion of the project by 12 years
All in all very accurate video (Greek here). I would only object about the train line that goes to Thessaloniki, which is really underdeveloped, running on outdated systems which most times they don’t even work. A proof of that was the tragedy we had a year ago, when to trains collided on full speed, as they were running on the same line without being aware 😔 people died, young university students mainly, but still nothing is fixed yet. The same lights that were not working, still don’t and the train is unsafe. The tragic event happened at an area called Tempi if you want to look it up. Thanks for the nice video, anyhow.
Thanks for your accurate presentation of my city's transit system. Visitors who use the system as it is now cannot really appreciate it, since they have not experienced what public transit was like before metro lines reached a decent length, that is in 2004. I am old enough to remember what the transit system looked like before the 2 new metro lines were inaugurated in January 2000. Before that date, buses were the main means of public transport. The ride from where I live to downtown Athens took between 40 and 60 minutes, depending on the traffic. Now the metro takes about 20 minutes. The worst thing was that bus terminals were not near each other, but scattered around the city center. Buses from the southern suburbs in the old times rode until Zappeion, later they were moved closer to the city center. To go from Zappeion to the center, we had either to walk for 15 minutes or take a trolley bus. Trolley buses were already packed when they reached Zappeion, so I usually preferred to walk. Inhabitants of the western suburbs were even less fortunate. The terminal stops were (and still are) close to Omonia square or at Koumoundourou square, which are degraded areas with many drug addicts around. So, after getting off the bus they had to walk in a sh*thole for a few minutes before reaching a civilized area. Nowadays they can take metro line 3 and reach Syntagma square in a few minutes. Passengers from the north-western suburbs had the same problem, as the terminal stops were in Vathi square, also a sh*thole, but at least they had the option to change to metro line 1 at Attiki square. The problem is that if they did so, they had to buy a new ticket, because back then there was no integrated ticket as there is today. Nowadays you pay 1.20 euros and you can change as many means of transport as you want in 90 minutes. 😃
@@joshi1863 “Hey, Speed up construction of California HSR - the Olympics are coming.”😀 Transit infrastructure in the United States seems to stay largely the same with little thought to the Olympics. Public transit in Los Angeles has improved greatly compared to the recent past. Perhaps the third Olympics is the charm, and the transit improvements will continue.
@@barryrobbins7694their solution is a massive parking moat around the stadium and a two car peoplemover to a tram. Their system could definitely use a bit more thought put into it.
Public transport in Sydney barely changed for the Olympics. A short branch line to the Olympic Park but nothing else changed. Brisbane is getting lots of public transport investment prior to their Olympics but most of that was in the works before they got the games awarded to them
@@johnhamilton6003The economics of hosting the Olympics is often not good for a city/region. There is a temporary economic bump and then the bills come due. Whereas investment in public transit is a longterm benefit. Los Angeles actually came out ahead in 1984. If cities/ regions have the money to improve transit infrastructure and host the Olympics, perhaps the synergy will boost longterm tourism. I certainly think California HSR will improve tourism.
Definitely good to learn from smaller cities in Europe and East Asia when trying to learn how to improve your city. Not that many cities are the size of Paris and none are the size of Tokyo, after all.
How is this a 'smaller city'? Like sure its not the size of Tokyo or Paris but alot of RM's videos are on much smaller cities. Athens is only a bit smaller than San Fransico-Oakland
@@flymaneternal1333I really think you shouldn't rely on the census. Both the proper and the metropolitan area have a lot more inhabitants. The census of 2021 didn't count A LOT of people, especially in Athens.
@@flymaneternal1333 The actual numbers are higher. A lot of Athens residents who were not born there move to their home towns during censuses and/or lie about their place of residence because this boost the infrastructure budget for their home towns (and takes away budget from Athens). A lot of immigrants also avoid participating in the census plus at any given time you have people visiting Athens for business trips and tons of tourists. A lot of people estimate that the actual number of people living the Athens metro area at any given moment is 5 million or more (especially during tourist season which is more than half the year). The city's infrastructure can't cope with amount of people, Athen's infrastructure is that of a city of 2 million, the congestion if off the roof and the metro system is in dire need of several expansions.
In 2008 i visited Athens for 2 weeks while staying in Koropi. I do not speak Greek and only had the dumb luck to grab a metro map that someone left behind. It was super convenient to check a 0.8 euro ticket that got me to almost everywhere in the city During a different visit in 2017 i also enjoyed following the arrival of buses live in their app, such that you always knew when you need to be at the station
i was waiting impatiently for this video, cause it's my home city! our metro is pretty good, the suburban railway is very good but very infrequent indeed, our busses are for the most part great, but oftentimes unreliable due to the overwhelming traffic we've got here (keep in mind, greece has about 8 - 8.something million vehicles, about 50% of which are registered and roam around in attica region, or just athens. 3.4 million of those 4.something million vehicles in athens are cars...so that explains a whole lot). however my problem is the tram. i live in a neighborhood which is not directly served by metro, but we've got trams running right through the center of our town. i used to use them a lot as a teenager and in my early adulthood, before i got my motorcycle. honestly, i'd sometimes just walk a bunch, cause it seemed better than waiting for 45 minutes for a tram to pass by. they're infrequent, they're very slow, making busses more attractive, on speed alone (yeah it sounds counterintuitive, but the busses that serve the same areas as the tram are a better option than the trams) and the absolute worst part is the actual lines. there used to be 3 lines. lines 3, 4 and 5. line 3 would run from the center to the western part of the coastal section, 4 would go from the center to the eastern part of it and 5 would run the entirety of the coast. it was good, intuitive, logical and practical. lets say i wanted to go from the center to glyfada (yes im a masochist), id just hop on line 4 and id be there in 3-4 business days. but now ill hop on line 6, go to pikrodafni station and wait for line 7. ever since the change of lines a couple years back, trams have become even more infrequent and unreliable. they're not quite useless per se, but i sometimes struggle to see where all the money for the tram goes. oh and the newest section of it, the piraeus expansion, is some of the worst public transport/city planning ive seen in a while. they first built it, ran some tests for a month, then deemed it too inefficient cause it would just get caught up in ridiculous port traffic, and stopped serving that part for some years, until they gave up (?) and put that section back into service..which is not used much because there's already a bunch of bus lines that cover the entire area quite well. our system's a bit of a mess, but at least it's one of the 3 good things athens has to offer. the rest is trash.
This video was awesome! I was waiting for more than a year for it. Besides that It would be great if you could make another one for the Thessaloniki metro as soon as it opens to public.
I lived in Athens (one of the northeast suburbs, Ag Paraskevi) from March of 2002 to October of 2004. When I moved there, both Line 2 and the initial part of Line 3 had recently opened. While I lived there, the Line 3 extension to the airport, the suburban rail and the tram opened. In addition a two stop southern extension of Line 2 opened. I used the entire Athens transit network quite heavily include many trips to the beaches on both the east and west side of the Attica peninsula. While I was living there, many of the trolley buses where old orange Soviet built trolley buses which have since been retired.
Can you please also make a video about the metro, trolleybus, bus and tram system in Sofia, the Bulgarian capital? There are a lot of interesting things to see. Sofia's metro line 3, for example, is a very modern metro system with automatically locking doors and modern Inspiro trains from Siemens.
I did like the Athena Tickets in Athens when I visited in 2022. €0.90 got me 90 mins of unlimited rides on all transport. so it was quite cost effective. And the tickets for a few rides on all transit was also great. I wish more cities would have this kind of ticketing system, as it's great for tourists, who may not be able to use their card due to fees, or get/want a pay as you go card
Great tip! That’s a very reasonable price to travel and not worry how far you’re going & wondering if it’s the correct fare. Great idea. I wished all cities did this.
Thanks for the video, I live in Greece and use the system quite a bit. With regards to the metro the frequency can be a bit rubbish leading to overcrowding most of the time. I agree that line 1 is home to some beautiful stations. Finally, one little niggle is you can only get a city bus/metro ticket at a metro station or a manned instead of on a bus. I had to walk 25 minutes from a hotel in the suburbs to get one a few months ago which wasn't ideal. With regards to trains they are building an underground 4 track line from Larissa station to Ska (where the X is) which will get rid of a lot of the grade crossings and hopefully mean a lot more frequent suburban service along with someday starting intercity trains from Patras. Larissa station is also being rebuilt. Finally, at the moment there is no metro link to the main bus intercity station in the West of the city but I read somewhere they are building a new bigger bus station which will be on the metro. Thanks again for the video
I must admit I don't quite agree with the title, but the video was accurate, well narrated, and informative. Athen's metro system has managed to connect the main port of the country, with the center of the capital and the main airport of the country, so it is super convenient for our welcomed visitors.
As someone who rides the trains a lot in Athens, our metro system really is a wonder. Especially for a system that is so different from just about any other system on the European Continent. You can ride the rails to most places in the city, and soon it will be even moreso.
Speaking of cities of greek origin, you should take a look at the Naples (Italy) transit network. It's a pretty large transit system, that in recent years has undergo some difficulties, especially due to economic constraints, but it is recovering, and remains one of the oldest and most unique systems in Italy and Europe, with many interesting features. Due to the fact that the city is built on various hills, the main metro line has characteristics and gradients of a mountain railway, and it's the only metro line in the world to pass over itself at a different altitude with a long helical tunnel. All the metro stations have an artistic theme with numerous installations, such as that of the National Museum (the most important in the world for Roman antiquities from Pompeii). Many stations are built at great depths such as "Toledo" which is below sea level and is themed as an undersea station (it won prizes as the most beautiful station in Europe). Then there are 4 funicular lines, many bus lines, some tram and trolleybus lines and some elevators, maritime transport lines to the islands and towns of the gulf, as well as a series of suburban railway lines operated by various private companies. It even had a cable car in its glory days and a rack railways to the famous Vesuvius volcano.. Not bad for a city of 1 million inhabitants (the entire metropolitan area is three million).
Honestly Athens is basically European Taipei: two of its three metro lines were built at the turn of the millennium, it recently invested into trams and both cities have the same quality of life
Interesting overview of a system i didnt know much about, Athens' transit system is a work in progress (so how infrequent is the airport rail service?) but it's pointed in the right direction. And of course, it wouldn't be an RM Transit video without the obligatory dunk on Toronto (6:40).
And the low frequency to the airport is because very few trains are double powered (7 in total of which 5 are in use while 2 are for backup). The rest are 3rd rail powered only
Your video was really really interesting! As a greek person, even I didn't know about many things you said. I would however like to point out an incident occuring in the greek railways just last year. In the valley of Tempi, there was a head-on collision of two trains with on total 354 passengers. At least 57 people died that day and it's the deadliest rail disaster in greek history. This all happened because of the ancient communication system (it wasn't even DIGITAL! The person who communicated with the drivers was writing about their direction in paper!!) in trains, the lack of funding and in the end the one train gained access to the rail road not knowing that it was heading straight to another one. Everyone in Greece is angry about the situation, many protests have been made and the matter has gone to EU grounds, and it shows just how underfunded the railroad system is. Most of the people that died were university students returning back home from a greek holiday (and many were unrecognisable because of the high temperatures after the crash) and the next day after the collision the greek government covered the "scene" with concrete. It is believed that this happened so a search wouldn't start in the scene because there was oil illegaly transferred in the passenger trains. May they rest in peace and i really hope justice will prevail. I know it is a bit off topic but i couldn't help but think about it cause this incident has scared the greek community the past year and it's worth searching. Have a nice day
The metro could do with some infill stations, especially one between Agios Antonios and Sepolia, I remember staying in Athens during a heatwave and having to walk every day for 20 minutes in the sweltering heat to get to it even though I stayed basically right on top of the line
Thank you for covering our transit system! I am a Greek living in France, and from all the cities i went to I think Montpellier would serve as excellent material for your channel due to its beautiful tram lines (which also became free for inhabitants recently).Love your work!
While it is mostly as you say, the system is not being maintained properly (especially line one) and is falling to disrepair, with the drivers union raising safety concerns especially after the big rail crash at Tempi last year. Accidents haven't happened yet, well, by accident.
Thanks Reece for another excellent video. In particular the maps are excellent. And the whole video is very clear and concise! Pity that metro line one (but not the more modern lines) is so tainted by graffitti.
Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I always find graffitied trains quite aesthetic. It does give the impression that the trains are not being taken care of though, so I understand the frustration.
I rather like the graffiti, particularly the full car canvases. It’s really a work of art and nostalgic of NYC cars in the 80s. Like @landonstout5526 said, I’m not going to pretend this is a popular opinion because of course freshly tagged cars no matter how beautiful and creative the writing, will always for some symbolize lawlessness filth and urban decay, the very last images you want your mass transit system to evoke
very nice overview of the big picture and planning of Athens transit system, something even us locals usually overlook. What would really improve the metro system is a long circular line that loops around the center as now if you want to go to a suburb near you, you need to take a train to downtown and then back out to that suburb. As someone else noted, digging under downtown Athens is very very slow because there are 3 layers of ancient cities and artifacts are found even today (some of which are beautifully displayed in the metro stations).
A surprisingly positive review. Yeah, the Line 1 trains (which aren't great) spend a lot of time outside where they get graffitied. That and it serves three major football stadiums. The new lines are much more corporate and controlled. My main complaint about the new underground metro is that it's crowded during the day and very loud.
When I think of Athens, the only question that comes to mind is: Will I ever see them complete the main train station or will the construction site be declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site before then?
As a resident of Athens, I really appreciate videos like this. Athens public transportation system is among the best in the world. I go weeks without driving. One very important point that wasn’t mentioned I think, but perhaps arose in another comment is the fare. The regular fare is €1.20, while as a pensioner I pay half that (€0.60)!
6:30 One minor complaint, though: The Athens suburban-regional rail network is actually distinct from the Greek national rail network. Its north-south line (line A3) only goes as far as Chalkida (Chalcis), which is actually 250 km away from Thessaloniki. In fact, line A3 actually splits off from the Athens-Thessaloniki main line right after Oinoi train station for the 15 km stretch from there to Chalcis. Trains to Thessaloniki actually operate under the IC (InterCity) and ETR (ElettroTreno Rapido) brands, with ETR being the premium, higher-speed option between the two cities.
What do you mean by “doesn’t feel European”? If you mean the dirty, urine-smelling and unsafe metro systems of many European countries, then yes, Athen’s metro system is definitely NOT European. Because it’s clean, safe, modern. Other than that, very informative and well-made video. Here’s a sub.
You totally missed why our transit system doesn't feel like Europe. While you could easily comment on the non-existing maintenance plaguing the whole system, how come you didn't at LEAST mention the death of 57 people (28/2/2023) occurring from the absence of a proper telecommunication infrastructure on the intercity and suburban lines! Without intending to involve political matters in to this, the head minister of transport is still in office, re-elected after dropping his position days after the tragic incident, though on a different domain. Returning on the quality of transport in Greece, I easily foresee that this shortcoming will repeat itself, hopefully without casualties or any form of pain. As a citizen I don't have a view on why that occurred in the first place (bad EU funding? bad use of EU funding? high levels of corruption? all the different governments in office not attending the restated issue of not having proper telecoms in the system? the minister of transport stating weeks before the accident that it’s disrespectful to comment on the system’s security? I could go on for days). Although your presentation is of high quality and I'm really happy that you've researched future metro expansions, I really want to bring your attention to this matter. P.S. I'm a big fan of channels that compare transit and everyday living matters of countries around the world. It really gives you a good idea of what the "essence" of another country feels like, since transit is a very big indicator of trust and respect, when countless people use it everyday, out of need and not for fun. I like that you captured the good facts about the potential of our transit, I also share that view and maybe think of our system in an even higher manner than you, but this is a way of showing what the current Greek essence really feels like. Feel free to research these events in more depth, finding out how unacceptable the reparation of all this is, more than a year later. Make a video about our urban buses next (also a huge part of our transport, connecting with many metro/tram stations)!
As an inhabitant of Athens, I can verify most of the references of the video. Overall our transit system is quite effecrive despite some issues. Although I believe that the Tram coast line should had not begun from Piraeus. The Tram infrastructure has totally ruined the town and has increased the traffic jam due to narrowing the streets for importing the railway. Same for Athens centre as well.
Thank you for this video. In fact I’ve never been to Athens but I’m interested to see that it has a good transit system. The transit systems often tell us quite a lot about the cultures where they are built and I think that is very true of this system.
Finally the time has come that you talk about the Athens transport system! I have been waiting for this day for a very long time. However I believe that you should have mentioned that the frequency of trains and buses is, depending on the day, either great or horrible. In the metro trains could come every 2-5 minutes and later on the same day every 10-25 minutes. Nobody really knows what the pattern is. Last but not least the second generation metro rolling stock (Mitsubishi Rotem) aren't that well maintained and are only serviced well when the train is filled with ads from a sponsor. Other than that it still is a great public transport system!
Ohh Athens, my city! I have to say it's a really nice video, but of course as a Greek I have to complain about stuff, hahah. First, while T7 is really nice for short trips, it kinda is the wrong mode for the route, because it's just too slow for a decent part of the trips that it could attract. Hell, even the A1 bus that parallels it on Poseidonos Ave is faster. So given that Poseidonos Ave is one of the few avenues in Athens that a have a decent capacity and allow for fast speeds for vehicles, line T7 is pretty uncompetitive to cars and it is even uncompetitive to bus line A1 (at least when it has good frequences). Also Athens suffers from the same kind of mentality that Toronto suffers, that is we like building metros beacause it helps with traffic, but we reaaally struggle convincing people to take space away from cars to surface transit. I mean, there are bus lanes (Ippokratous, Papadiamantopoulou) that were turned back to ON STREET PARKING, in a european country, because there wasn't the political will to police them. So yeah, while the metro is pretty decent, the surface transit is pretty slow and is generally lacking. If you are a tourist you don't notice that, but if you live here you absolutely do, since the metro coverage still isn't that large. So if you both live and work near a metro station your transit experience is going to be pretty good, if you live or work near a metro line, well it depends and if you don't live or work near a metro line your experience will range from kinda bad to appalling. At least the metro is expanding at a kinda decent rate, without breaking the bank (that first phase of line 4 has a length of 12,8 km and 15 stations, with only 2 of them being built with cut and cover, and is budgeted at 1,5 billion euros or 1,62 billion dollars), but the surface transit isn't really taken seriously here.
As an Athenian myself, I'll say that for bus lines, it really really depends the line you're using. Because suburban bus lines are rarely stuck in traffic. But those in the centre of the city do. But compared to North American cities which Reece has consistently shown here, along with Not Just Bikes, it's not nearly as bad. Compared to other European cities, maybe.
"that is we like building metros because it helps with traffic, but we really struggle convincing people to take space away from cars to surface transit" It's the same in Turkey as well. They make progress in Istanbul by opening new metro lines every year but since Ankara's metro is planned weirdly, even though it has 67 km length of metro and 33 km length of suburban rail, it's still not enough for Ankara. As a city that has the first underground metro in Turkey (not counting the LRT line (M1) in Istanbul) Ankara is now getting behind İzmir, Bursa, Antalya, Kayseri (Izmir 28 km of LRT 20 km of the tram, Bursa is also the same, Antalya and Kayseri have around 55 km of tram line). I wish they took Ankara and Izmir more seriously but at least they built lots of tram lines in Turkey in the last 20 years (Bursa, Antalya, Izmit, Gaziantep, Kayseri, Samsun, Eskisehir, Konya). They have more tram (Adana, Diyarbakir, Sanliurfa, Trabzon, Sakarya), suburban rail (Afyon, Konya), and metro (Mersin, Gebze, Gaziantep) projects in the queue. I wish they built these railway systems more oriented with intercity railways, bicycles, and pedestrians, but at least they are building something that is definitely better than nothing. I hope the Athens metro will expand more and Thessaloniki Metro will open soon and safely komşu.
indeed, i used to live about 10 minutes away from a line 1 station. it is very convenient to use, and im honestly glad that my family can take advantage of it because the traffic is absolutely insane sometimes. i actually left before turning 18, so i never drove in athens, but my mom did take me with her to do some chores around the city sometimes. the traffic was always so crazy and slow, and some streets are actually built weirdly which does not help car circulation very much. which is why my mother uses the metro to go to work now- it works fine and im glad for that but i really wish athens didnt have such a big issue with traffic. i also wish it was more walkable, because cars in athens WILL run you over if you dont rush through the street at the perfect time, while in italy, as long as rhe driver sees you, they will slow down and stop and let you cross the street with absolutely no issues. and basically yeah, athenians have some driving tendences that catch me off guard whenever im back there, because i kind of got unused to the frenetic nature of its traffic.
γενικα στην θεσσαλονικη υπαρχει συγκοινωνια??? Οχι,το μετρο θεωρω οτι θα αρχισει να φερνει πισω ενα μικρο κομματι συγκοινωνιας και αν φτιαχτει μια καλα συνδετικη γραμμη τραμ και ενα καλα εκτεταμένο δικτυο προαστιακου σιδηροδρομου,θεωρω οτι ενα βιντεο μπορει να κανει.
Please don't let it be forget that we lost 57 lives, mostly young people, due to government ignorance after lot of strikers and notifications from the workers, Greece took a lot of money and spend none in maintenance, not even finished installing detection systems that caused the crash of 2 trains....
I went to Athens in the summer of 2019, as the final stop of a journey with friends that brought us to Thessaloniki and Santorini before - and I liked how easy it was getting around the city with public transport. I still have the travel pass that I loaded up as soon as we arrived and used it on buses, the metro to Piraeus, the tram to the southern beaches and the Metro to the airport (which was more convenient than taking a taxi, as our apartment was literally 3 minutes from a metro station). In all, Athens has one of the best transit systems out of all the places I've traveled to in Europe.
as an Athenian who doesn't live in the center, but the western suburbs, i have some thinks to note. First the metro is generally good (apart from the extreme rush hours who is hugely crowded) BUT it's designed in an American manner where it mainly connects suburbs to center rather than suburb-to-suburb. For example in order to go to university, which is in the same western sector as me, i have to switch from the red line to the blue one. So i have to ride all the way to the center and back, when it's literally a neighbouring municipality. so with metro i do MORE time to get there than drive, even at rush hours with horrendous traffic.... Busses are not that good either, they have very slow intervals and as a result, they are always over-crowded
As an Athenian who lived there for 18 years, I can tell that the metro system is very effective and helpful in commuting throughout the city. Our population is 5 million though, we definitely need more lines as well as a renovation of the suburban rail system. The only big problem in the metro nowadays is that it's often dangerous to ride, since it's full of people who seek for fights or to rob others. This can be found especially in line 1. If this is fixed by improving safety and adding more security guards and cameras, the metro will be perfect.
The suburban railway is in dilapidated state. The line north of larissis Station is single traked due to the construction of the underground lines and its in that state for almost a decade . Very little progress is being done causing massive delays and fewer frequencies. The signaling is also vandalized and unmaintained for much of the lines towards the north or the Peloponnese hindering the lines operations even more
On my relatively recent visit to Athens, I was really impressed by the buses and trolleybuses, they were frequent, on time, easy to navigate online and had very clear real time information inside, making it possible to take them confidently even as a tourist who doesn't speak Greek. At the same time, the city looked extremely motorized and cars and bikes were moving super fast, making it a bit uncomfortable to walk around in some areas. Still though, my impression of Athens is definitely positive and I'm looking forward to going back.
I live in athens and if you excuse the terrible buses the metro lines are all really good. Youre never really more than 45 minutes to an hour away from your destination and i think thats pretty cool
In Europe we call a line "metro" depending on its capacity and operator; not how it was initially designed. A system with around 30.000+ people per direction per hour capacity operated by some municipality is often called a "metro;" whereas a similar system operated by the railway authority (on their tracks, hence mostly overground) is given some other name "RER, S-bahn, banliyö, the Overground, etc."
Yeah, just like in Vienna, where the Stadtbahn became metro later in the 1970s. But that's the point: later. The same in Athens. Today's Line 1 was indeed an S-Bahn, nothing more, nothing less. It's goal was to connect Pireus to Athens not to provide Athenians transport inside the city... That's where the word metro comes from. Metropolitain as the word for "big city". And the metro as a train where the purpose is to help you to travel inside that big city. Pireus and Athens were different cities/towns without today's one big continuous urban area. So it really just went from one place to the other just what a suburban railway does. Athen's M1 can be considered as a metro after it's route became one urban area. I guess since somewhere in the 50s maybe...
@@obarnabas Metro lines did not originate as repurposed rail lines. They were designed separately (often with entirely different standards) to carry workers from suburbs to city centers where the industry was concentrated. Though some metro lines are converted from existing rail lines.
Something to note: The Blue Line was recently expanded twice and now fully circles through three new stations to get to Piraeus. However, it skips out on two whole municipalities and people from there have to walk or use the bus which can take up to 30-40 minutes of extra travel time. This sucks because a lot of people live there and have jobs elsewhere.
I love the transit system in Athens. It not the biggest and far from perfect, but they have managed to really make the best out of it. The utilization of the different lines and busses they do have is done in such a efficient way. Add the highspeed rail between Athens and Thessaloniki, and soon between Athens and Patras and you have a nice little transit network in mainland Greece that connects it all. Soon the Metro in Thess will open, and the extension to the airport will follow in a few years. Then, you can fly in to Thess, transit all your way down to Athens and Patra, and take the boat over to Italy. The ferries around to the islands are also very cool!
Don't have high hopes for Thessaloniki metro being completed. They first said that it was going to be completed in 2020, then 2021, then 2023, then again in summer of 2024, actually I ment november of 2024 and you get the picture (sorry for bad english).
5:00 Correction: Athens also has _exactly one station with_ platform edge lights. Locals still haven't figure out why. 6:50 to trains not ending up in the wrong lines and/or lost 8:16 The matro trains to the airport pass every 36 minutes if they are on time (which they never are) due to a lack of trains, but they have ordered new trains which will hopefully reduce the wait to its pre-2020 times (2020 was when a huge chunk of the eastern part of Line 3 opened). If someone looks at Athens to learn how to build a good public transit system, I totally believe they need help. We aren't far from the time when stations (starting with Monastiraki) will have problems due to lack of maintainance. It's also worth mentioning that two of the three types of trains in the system are always broken (the two newer ones specifically), while the third one (the oldest and my favorite) is extremely loud and does not have air-conditioning. The other funny thing is that the system never knows where its trains are. I think _we_ should be taking lessons from Paris. On a different note, my favorite station is Egaleo, because it's a very unique design for Athens with white tiles on the round walls-ceiling (it kinda reminds me of Paris but bigger). It's also very spacious and it even has an echo. It's worth mentioning that a piece of the tunnel behind Egaleo is better illuminated than the entire station of Agia Marina (the one directly after Egaleo).
As someone who lives in Athens, I would say the metro is great. The buses don't have enough bus lanes, so can get stuck in traffic and the Proastiakos (suburban railway) should have more stops on the north-south line. Also the metro could do with a circle line to connect suburbs, rather than another line to take people to the centre.
Nice video! Regarding the at-grade crossings in central Athens: this is along the north-south axis of the "plus" sign, through west-central Athens. They started building a long tunnel to bring the train underground. The first sections are planned to go into use in 2025.
I used the system and I am impressed. It is cheap. It was on time. I even rode on a regular bus at night & further away from the touristy center and it also was convenient. This was despite the in-bus station monitor not working which resulted in even the locals looking out of the window trying to read the small station signs to determine where we were currently at. Also, arrival time monitoring woked really well with google maps. In general, I found Athens and especially Piraeus to be quite pleasant for such a big city (you really have to look at the Urban or Metro area population and not the city proper, just like in Paris) - if only it weren't that hot in summer!
When I visited Athens, I was shockingly impressed by just how effective and useful the metro was with only three lines. I was able to get nearly everywhere I wanted to go, and it was quite quick, especially compared to the horrendous traffic there.
It's quite a dense city
Thing is, it probably is one of the few cities where the centre, the Airport and the port ot the city are all connected through just one line.
@@Pan472 they are actually connected by two lines, the metro and the suburban railway line A1
@@goatgamer001 Yes, I'm aware, but I was talking specifically about line 3.
It's a really good example of designing a network that hits all the key activity centres. Though Line 3 is also REALLY long!
As a daily commuter on the Athens public transport system i must say that it is fairly efficient. However my main complaints, that most others share, it the fact that 1) Buses are infrequent and unreliable, especially in the northern suburbs that are highly populated areas with no metro connectivity, 2) 24hour service is not a thing especially on the weekends with buses, confusingly, running until 21:30, the metro until 1:30am and suburban rail until 23:30, 3) the tracks on the Syntagma - Ethniki Amyna section on M3 are in need of maintenance for quite some time so the trains run at a reduced speed and 4) Line M1 is in desperate need of maintenance and new rolling stock (recently, 3 trains from M2 and M3, the first generation metro trains, had to be transferred to M1 in order to support it). Overall, yes we have a solid public transport network, but there is still work to be done. Also thank you for this video! I have been manifesting it for quite some time now!
"buses are infrequent and unreliable"
As a daily user of about 5 bus lines myself, I wouldn't say so. The lines which I use have pretty frequent service. As for reliability, if you have the app, it's not unreliable. It indicates when buses start and at in how many minutes the bus will arrive at your stop. What's bad about the network it its fleet, which is pretty old. But even that will be fixed, as already the first 140 new buses have arrived, and many others will come. Also, yeah the extent of the services are really short, until 23:00 pm at best.
For the metro, it's not the entirety, but very specific sections, as in the one rail junction between Katehaki and Panormou stations, and that between Syntagma and Evangelismos stations.
It largely depends on which bus lines are you talking about as some lines are better than others, not that you are wrong, because there are days where the bus seems inefficient. As for the metro I agree with your points.
in the northern suburbs, people think that building metro is ridiculus. They dont want a metro built in their neighbourhood, as they consider cars superior. I know because i have asked. Also, all over Athens people are complaining about metro being built, especially in Exarheia. Although i consider having metro being built in your neighbourhood is a big W as you do not have to rely on car to even go to the metro. It's not uncommon for people to drive a car or carpool to the metro station (especially Doukissis Plakentias (actually shown in ~ 6:27)), as its the closest station to many northern suburbs). Also, the time to go to the centre from an area with just cars and busses is nearly one hour without using a car, and it would be cut in half with the metro. Also, athens is among the densest european cities, so park n ride makes even less sense that it does in USA or Canada.
All night service is a huge drain on ressources and maintenance. It’s nice an paper, but there are better ways to spend money on the Athens metro.
@@Pan472 Well, I've heard that the newly arrived chinese e-buses cannot be charged when they're in the bus depot, because there have been no electric stations bought to charge them. Lol - But I can't say how reliable this info is.
I remember suggesting the video a year ago! As a greek myself, I can confirm that the analysis is very accurate and to the point. Regarding the Thessaloniki metro, our government says that it's ready and that it will open to the public this fall, but I have my suspicions...
THIS FALL? it's a long way to finish even one stage
it was suposed to open last year, but it got delayed for some reason
@@Gatoraded27
ain't no way we ever getting any sort of metro up north
I thought Thessaloniki metro was ready. Good to see it’ll be ready soon.
Well, as a Greek, but Athenian, I can guarantee it has become a meme
Something that didn't come through your video is the super simple connection between the airport and Piraeus which makes for island vacationing that is so simple. My wife and I were in Greece last year and we didn't need to take a cab to get to our ferry.
The bad thing is that service through the entirety of the line is infrequent. Service is frequent only up to Doukissis Plakentias station.
@@Pan472The government is working on getting additional rolling stock that would bring the frequency down to every ~20 minutes from 36 that it is now.
@@michaelpapadopoulos6054 I've contacted the company, Elliniko Metro, which is responsible for the rolling stock. I don't see it coming anywhere in the near future.
@@Pan472Oh cool! do talk about what they've told you. I am aware that the government will very often talk about doing things and then not do them. I'm still waiting for any news about the undergrounding of line 1 from Neo Faliro to Peiraeus but I don't see it happening any time soon. Currently it takes like 6 minutes to travel 1 station.
@@michaelpapadopoulos6054They say they're now holding talks in order to facilitate the making of the Faliro-Piraeus section underground. But given how complex it actually is, as it involves cutting off a very busy section which has frequent service, and replacing it, I doubt it'll be implemented any time soon.
Athens didn't just rip out their historic tram system, they converted it to an electric trolleybus system. In fact, the Athens trolleybus system is the largest of all countries of the former Western Bloc, and the largest in the EU. That also means Athens has had an electric bus system for much longer than many systems introducings BEBs now.
Yep, and internationally this was not all that uncommon. Its a real asset that they still have it!
Salzburg is similar in this case.
Sounds a lot like my city Arnhem too.
oil up
All true except we had nothing to do with the eastern block
Thessaloniki metro allegedly was supposed to open in 2020, then 2021, then 2022, summer of 2023, no nevermind summer of 2024, no November 2024 (First hole dug was 1986)
They found ancient building all over Thessaloniki because of this, and your beautiful city feels like an open museum
Rome suffers from the same issue. Many years ago, they were supposed to build a new overpass for one of the suburban rail lines, but they found ancient remains and the project was frozen for 3-4 years whilst they looked for more and cleared up the affected area.
The same thing is happening with the new Metro C line that goes through Rome's city centre. The more they dig, the more ancient artefacts they find, the more the project gets delayed.
It was supposed to open in 2017 but it's probably opening by 2025
@@goatgamer001 They say November 2024, but that's only the central line. All of the west and some of the east have no metro connection (the east has another line being built rn)
First hole if 1986 was a joke. Not an actual attempt.
I loved the stations in the centre of the city with their ancient displays. The metro is like a museum at these stations. Beautiful.
Always love when metro systems do this, Mexico City also comes to mind!
The new dimotiko theatro line 3 terminal is also kinda like a museum. There’s a tour video if you look it up
@@DimitrisSartzetakis Dimotiko Theatro is the best metro station in Athens.
Speaking as a Thessalonian: watching the local meme of the Thessaloniki metro construction state reaching global status is both hilarious and depressing at the same time.
Well, you got metro now))
yall are so dramatic omg
Incredible video and thank you for properly utilising the footage! It's so nice to see Athens finally represented here and getting a comprehensive and positive evaluation!
As a note of importance: every metro station is thankfully linked to multiple bus and trolleybus lines, which act as feeders for the metro network and despite their aging fleet, still have very frequent services, especially compared to any North American city. Plus, along with all other rail, the fares are united and used in the metro and the bus as well!
Note 2: the metro receives more than 2.5 million riders per day. It's traffic is much bigger than well above 1.5 million you could say! But we only rely on ticket data, which don't count in all days and count only certain periods in these said days.
Note 3: It wasn't mentioned, although it's very, very important for any visitor, but trains to and from the Airport arrive every 36 minutes. So, especially if you're coming from the direction of Piraeus, if you're not already in an airport train, you'll have to disembark at Plakentias and wait there, or take a suburban train as an alternative, if possible. Line 3 has the direct connection between the port, the centre and the airport but service through the entirely of the line is very infrequent. Service is very, very frequent only up to Doukissis Plakentias station, for which you have to be vigilant for the following: as it's the intermediate terminal of line 3, many times trains are averted to the direction of Piraeus so as to evade the track change after Plakentias and make services automatically more frequent. So, you have to go to the opposite platform in that case.
I think these should have been added in the video, but other than that it addressed all the main elements. Good job @rmtransit!
Thank you for all your help Pan!
@@RMTransitMy pleasure Reece. I hope that at one point in the future, these additions will be included in edits, as it's really helpful, especially for visitors to Athens, to know everything if they're to rely exclusively on public transport. Thank you once again for the video.
I love the zoom out map at 6:25- It really helps put things into perspective- I sometimes wish you had a scale bar in the bottom corner though.
Thanks for the amazing videos!
I've considered this but, I think the visual clutter kills it for me and the value on a video is less certain
When my mom was a university student in thessaloniki, its metro was almost finished.... im on the last year of university
Guess what, it's finished.
@geogeo2299 and it caught fire the first day in the middle of the worst downpours we've seen in years
@greekcomenterperson446 It didn't catch fire. This was a drill not an actual fire. The metro is running well, the only problem being the ticket service but it is somewhat expected when you have hundreds of thousands of people trying to get a ticket or a card on the first 4 days , it will get better as some days pass
@@Konstantinos1404 τι απαντας ρε μπρο
Δεν τον καταλαβεσ? Προκειται για πρωταθλητη στο ΖΑΙΑΘΛΟΝ
Athenians colloquially call line one of the metro the "Electrical", since it was one of the first appliances of electricity in Greece. So I always like to say that "I was doing tasks in electrical" when I was going somewhere by line one 😂
Greetings from Pireaus, Greece 🇬🇷
How do you then call buses? The 'mechanical'?
@@franzjosef7728 We call them buses
hungarian has something very similar, a tram is called 'villamos', except it's even better, because being the language purists that they are, they created that word to avoid loaning it from other languages, so etymologically it means essentially 'lightning-having', which i find absolutely amazing. and having been a part of hungary at the time, slovak does the same thing with 'električka' as opposed to czech 'tramvaj'
@@franzjosef7728 hahah, nice one! They're actually called leoforio (leoforia in the plural), which literally means "people bringer". It's actually a really interesting word, because people is usually laos, from the Ancient Doric/Spartan Greek laos. But leos was the ancient Athenian word, which was supplanted completely in all uses except for this word. This word was obviously created during the Katharevousa period.
We call it the electric train, electric for short. It was the first electric line and it was an easy way to describe it. There were also thermal trains at the same era.
Bravo Greece! Very beautiful. Καλησπέρα from Sofia :)
Dobre Den! I was quite impressed by the Sofia metro when I went. (At least to the extent I got to see)
The Bulgarians did a good job with their metro too
Finally a video about the transportation about Athens !😍😍
But here some miss points:
1. The Athens metro stations are also museums, they host antiquities in some.
2.the line 4 is gonna be a fully automated systems of driverless trains.
3. The suburban system is gonna be extended to the port of Rafina and the town of Lauvrio
Anyways, good video!
I thought it was already at Lavrio 🤔
5:15 he talks about automated trains. Dont rush to comment before actually watching :)
@@ΦΤιπ to eixa dei olo to video ala prepi na mou xefige.
Extended? Bro let them finish with Thessaloniki metro first
@@jim212gr8 we are talking about the proastiakos , the suburban wich is (giaose/trainitalia/hellenic trains) the metro in thessaloniki is Attiko metro so is different . Of course one day the metro of thessaloniki has to be finished at some point obviously.
But here we are talking about the transportation of Athens the capital so is much more important .
Omg you’ve been to Athens! My partner’s originally from Athens so we go every year. Their metro is one of my favourites in the world, lines 2 and 3 so clean and efficient and I love all the trains. Even line 1 is great, being old and even with the trains covered in graffiti it gives it so much character
I remember wooden seats on Line 1 in 1980, trolley buses, an aggressively driven bus via Syngrou to the coast, and suffocating traffic at rush hour in the city center such that I got out and walked. No tram then so I have watched videos!
Line 1 definitely does have a *lot* of character!
Great video about my city, RM Transit! Have been a fan since last year (subed on Nebula)
Everything said is very on point, and its awsome to feature in the video all the quirks and features of our systems
Some notable additions about transit in athens:
1. Most, if not all, metro stations feature some sort of archaeological pieces on display, because wherever you dig in athens, you find things. From simple artifacts to entire buildings, especially in the stations in the center of athens (syntagma, akropoli, monastiraki) and piraeus.
2. The first underground stations of line 1 (omonoia and victoria), built in the 1930s, have interior design inspired from the berlin u bahn, with yellow and green tiling, something very different compared to the rest of the stations.
3. The new yellow line (4), while not big in distance, will connect some of the most densely populated neighbourhoods of not just athens, but europe in general.
4. The modern Athens Tram, while great, is not a very popular means of transport because it is comparatively slow. The coastline line is very popular in the summer, but the athens center line is not at all. When in planning, it was supposed to have the right of way at intersections, but it never got implemented. Unfortunately, the on-ground planning in athens is still very car-centric, and more expansions of the tram network in athens center and piraeus, while planned, are not scheduled at least for this decade. To give you some context, the whole project of the modern tram network was a mandate in order to host the olympics in 2004 (thats when most of the network was built).
5. The suburban rail, as you said, is the "forgotten child" of athens transit systems. Mostly built in 2004-07, it still has not caught up to its full potential, even though it connects many important sectors, suburbs, port, airport, and center of the city. Reasons why can be traced to the general problems of greek railways, but new stations, expansions and lines are planned till the end of this decade. Those will connect 2 satellite ports, more suburbs, and industrial complexes. (earliest date was 2026, but we needed to divert funds to fix the mainline and branchlines in Central Greece that were damaged due to flooding last September).
There is also a literal bottleneck north of Athens central station, because we are upgrading the existing old 2-line ground-level corridor to a new underground 4-line to fit more train traffic. This, along with a general train shortage, make short-term service upgrades almost impossible. When all works and upgrades are complete, train frequency in the center corridor should rival the metro lines, boosting ridership. Definetely check back in 3 years!
All in all, it was a great explanatory video, not just for transit nerds around the world but for us locals too. Greetings from Greece!
well said! About your last point, I wish they went ahead with undergrounding the corridor all the way to piraeus. It would free up so much space and we would essentially get an extra metro line for a fraction of the cost since the right of way is already there. Also they should really build an interchange station with line 3 at kerameikos . I suspect it would become the de facto central station of the network since it's at the edge of the walkable touristy downtown part of Athens.
@@michaelpapadopoulos6054 γενικότερα μεσα στον αστικο ιστό της αθήνας, τα μονα σχέδια για τον σιδηροδρομικό διάδρομο ειναι η ανισοπεδοποίηση μέχρι ρέντη (με υπογειοποίηση στ-λαρίσης-ρουφ και σταση στο κεραμεικό και ανισοπεδοποίηση της διάβασης στην κωσταντινουπόλεως/πειραιώς), και η ολοκλήρωση του ΣΚΑ μαζί με τη σήραγγα αχαρνών ωστε τα υπεραστικά τρένα να παρακάμπτουν την πόλη και να γίνει το ΣΚΑ ο μεγαλος συγκοινωνιακός κόμβος που είχε σχεδιαστεί. Δεν προβλέπονται περεταίρω υπογειοποιήσεις και κόλπα, και μεταξύ μας, δεν χρειάζονται
So what exactly doesn't feel European about Athens transit? You literally compare Athens density to that of Paris. Anyways, great video as always
I went to Athens back in January and I used the metro a whole lot to get around, very convenient, it was rather clean and people use it alot. The airport line features space for your luggage which was also pretty cool
Athens and Pireaus also have significant trolleybus systems which link everything together.
It has finally happened!!! Very nice video explaining the system quite extensively and even mentioning the trolleybus system, which is quite long! Glad my clips of the tram proved useful, you integrated them better than i expected in the video!
The Olympics always demands new transit systems are built, you hope when they build them that they're future proofed (I.e. serve a purpose post-games), it's one lasting legacy that many host cities do get, if they get it right
As far as transit goes I actually think the record is pretty good!
Yeah, what about the little matter of the greek economy going bankrupt in the GFC?
@@dontcomply3976 the Olympics were a symptom of what brought bankruptcy, not a cause. With a debt of roughly 300 billion € around 2009, the 8.5 billion that Olympic Games cost, didn’t destroy the economy and not being awarded the games (and not paying the associated costs) wouldn’t have saved it either.
0:16 As of 30 November 2024, Thessaloniki Metro opened to the public! I’ve been using it everyday since and I’m proud to say it’s the best metro I’ve ever been in! It’s only one line with 15 stops but it’s very contemporary and useful for getting to the city center. It’s very crowded at the moment but people seem to like it a lot! Why not, make a video about the newly constructed Thessaloniki Metro!
An other fun fact about Athens: it has the largest trollybus network in the western world (which makes sence for such a mountainous city) and the diesel busses are some of the older ones in regular use in europe, featuring O 405s from the 1990s - it is the right kind of weather for them not to rust and the greeks have always been of the persuasion that if it ain't broke, don't fix it and with decent maintanance busses can last for ever. There are generaly speaking lots of classic cars and trucks and busses in Greece, just adds to the apeal of the country as a holliday destination if that's the sort of ting one is in to.
Nahh, it's more like a decade of austerity made it so there weren't enough funds to replace the ageing fleet. You can tell, because with the begining of the coronavirus and the subsequent relaxation of budgeting requirements, the process to proccure new busses basically begun immediately.
@@MrVlad0978 The first new buses have actually arrived just today in fact. And the city is going to get a total of almost 600 new buses by 2025, as it seems.
sometimes if it is broke we also dont fix it hahaha
The fleet is really terrible in some occasions. For example, infamous bus line 608 uses some of the city's worst vehicles despite being one of the busiest.
5:01 The lights are only in a handful of stations. Also, since you mentioned the national rail lines, it must be said that since the Tempi tragedy hardly anyone trusts them anymore. Honestly I don't even blame them. It truly is one of the most horrific things that have happened in Greece's recent history...
It is just in Syntagma station in the line 2 platforms, I believe it is used for line 3 passengers connecting to line 2 if a train is approaching.
@@tsarwilliams8912 Very interesting! Thanks for that info!
@@RMTransit its nice to be a positive person in general but that guy mentioned a problem that has caused accidents and killed people and it is still ongoing and not fixed. not only in tempi in national lines but in athens in line 1 there has been an accident in recent years killing workers. the fact that you thank for the info about the lights and you completely ignore the info about the security of the whole system means those lights are more important for you and that is the point where your positivity becomes toxicity. you have zero respect for the people that died. disgusting.
@@cinqbuns you are disgusting for assuming the worst w/o having context
I also don't have the context, but I consider some possibilities for them to not reply
1. They already heard it from another comment
2. They already knew it since was a huge issue a year ago
do you know if these possibilities are false?
how can you be so sure?
is cursing others going to make you feel better as a person?
is that the image you want foreigners to have of us Greek people?
@@arjix8738 ok i will put all the wrong things under the carpet to feel better as a person. it will slow my evolution but i guess its ok , none cares about evolution. ty for your advice.
THESSALONIKI METRO HAS NOW OPENED!!
@@dimitris_kour1505 Yes, it isn't an anecdote any more, it is reality 😆
Also, for a hot take, as a passenger at least, I find the Ansaldobreda Sirios to be be pretty decent. The air-conditioning always works (important for Athens) and I find the longitudinal seating of the Sirios above the bogies to be more comfortable than the pretty cramped tranverse above-the-bogies seats of the Citadises.
I do concur about the seating over the bogies, I also think Hitachi's new trams look pretty good!
The sirios do have more practical seating but the ones we have in athens are sooo worn out and honestly not consistently clean on the inside. Also, the AC doesn't always work.
Great video and I was waiting for this one for a long time, living in Athens myself. However there was 1 main point that wasn't addressed in the video. That is the fact that building a metro in Athens is a whole different level of difficulty compared to other cities because modern Athens is built directly above the ancient city meaning you're guaranteed to find important archaeological sites when excavating so archaeological investigation have to be a part of planning. This makes the Athens metro similar only to Rome compared to which I think it has a much better spanning and it it wasn't for the very low budgeting and the economic crisis that basically led to bankruptcy in the 2010s, the metro would already be in its 5th line with more than 150 stations.
The Thessaloniki metro is about to finally open in November, after the archaeological findings, the fact the metro is been built in unstable subsurface and the economic crisis that completely stopped the project for years at a time, pushed the completion of the project by 12 years
All in all very accurate video (Greek here). I would only object about the train line that goes to Thessaloniki, which is really underdeveloped, running on outdated systems which most times they don’t even work. A proof of that was the tragedy we had a year ago, when to trains collided on full speed, as they were running on the same line without being aware 😔 people died, young university students mainly, but still nothing is fixed yet. The same lights that were not working, still don’t and the train is unsafe. The tragic event happened at an area called Tempi if you want to look it up.
Thanks for the nice video, anyhow.
Thanks for your accurate presentation of my city's transit system. Visitors who use the system as it is now cannot really appreciate it, since they have not experienced what public transit was like before metro lines reached a decent length, that is in 2004. I am old enough to remember what the transit system looked like before the 2 new metro lines were inaugurated in January 2000. Before that date, buses were the main means of public transport. The ride from where I live to downtown Athens took between 40 and 60 minutes, depending on the traffic. Now the metro takes about 20 minutes. The worst thing was that bus terminals were not near each other, but scattered around the city center. Buses from the southern suburbs in the old times rode until Zappeion, later they were moved closer to the city center. To go from Zappeion to the center, we had either to walk for 15 minutes or take a trolley bus. Trolley buses were already packed when they reached Zappeion, so I usually preferred to walk. Inhabitants of the western suburbs were even less fortunate. The terminal stops were (and still are) close to Omonia square or at Koumoundourou square, which are degraded areas with many drug addicts around. So, after getting off the bus they had to walk in a sh*thole for a few minutes before reaching a civilized area. Nowadays they can take metro line 3 and reach Syntagma square in a few minutes. Passengers from the north-western suburbs had the same problem, as the terminal stops were in Vathi square, also a sh*thole, but at least they had the option to change to metro line 1 at Attiki square. The problem is that if they did so, they had to buy a new ticket, because back then there was no integrated ticket as there is today. Nowadays you pay 1.20 euros and you can change as many means of transport as you want in 90 minutes. 😃
It would be interesting to compare the effects on public transit infrastructure in metro areas after preparations for the Olympics.
@@joshi1863 “Hey, Speed up construction of California HSR - the Olympics are coming.”😀
Transit infrastructure in the United States seems to stay largely the same with little thought to the Olympics.
Public transit in Los Angeles has improved greatly compared to the recent past. Perhaps the third Olympics is the charm, and the transit improvements will continue.
@@barryrobbins7694their solution is a massive parking moat around the stadium and a two car peoplemover to a tram. Their system could definitely use a bit more thought put into it.
Its a video I have long considered!
Public transport in Sydney barely changed for the Olympics. A short branch line to the Olympic Park but nothing else changed.
Brisbane is getting lots of public transport investment prior to their Olympics but most of that was in the works before they got the games awarded to them
@@johnhamilton6003The economics of hosting the Olympics is often not good for a city/region. There is a temporary economic bump and then the bills come due. Whereas investment in public transit is a longterm benefit.
Los Angeles actually came out ahead in 1984. If cities/ regions have the money to improve transit infrastructure and host the Olympics, perhaps the synergy will boost longterm tourism. I certainly think California HSR will improve tourism.
Definitely good to learn from smaller cities in Europe and East Asia when trying to learn how to improve your city. Not that many cities are the size of Paris and none are the size of Tokyo, after all.
How is this a 'smaller city'? Like sure its not the size of Tokyo or Paris but alot of RM's videos are on much smaller cities. Athens is only a bit smaller than San Fransico-Oakland
Athens really isnt especially small. The city has 665K proper and 3.76M in the metropol area. In the Urban Agglometation it has 3M.
@@flymaneternal1333I really think you shouldn't rely on the census. Both the proper and the metropolitan area have a lot more inhabitants. The census of 2021 didn't count A LOT of people, especially in Athens.
Athens isn't small. It is in the top 10 largest cities in the EU( on the lower end)
@@flymaneternal1333 The actual numbers are higher. A lot of Athens residents who were not born there move to their home towns during censuses and/or lie about their place of residence because this boost the infrastructure budget for their home towns (and takes away budget from Athens). A lot of immigrants also avoid participating in the census plus at any given time you have people visiting Athens for business trips and tons of tourists. A lot of people estimate that the actual number of people living the Athens metro area at any given moment is 5 million or more (especially during tourist season which is more than half the year). The city's infrastructure can't cope with amount of people, Athen's infrastructure is that of a city of 2 million, the congestion if off the roof and the metro system is in dire need of several expansions.
In 2008 i visited Athens for 2 weeks while staying in Koropi. I do not speak Greek and only had the dumb luck to grab a metro map that someone left behind. It was super convenient to check a 0.8 euro ticket that got me to almost everywhere in the city
During a different visit in 2017 i also enjoyed following the arrival of buses live in their app, such that you always knew when you need to be at the station
i was waiting impatiently for this video, cause it's my home city!
our metro is pretty good, the suburban railway is very good but very infrequent indeed, our busses are for the most part great, but oftentimes unreliable due to the overwhelming traffic we've got here (keep in mind, greece has about 8 - 8.something million vehicles, about 50% of which are registered and roam around in attica region, or just athens. 3.4 million of those 4.something million vehicles in athens are cars...so that explains a whole lot).
however my problem is the tram. i live in a neighborhood which is not directly served by metro, but we've got trams running right through the center of our town. i used to use them a lot as a teenager and in my early adulthood, before i got my motorcycle. honestly, i'd sometimes just walk a bunch, cause it seemed better than waiting for 45 minutes for a tram to pass by. they're infrequent, they're very slow, making busses more attractive, on speed alone (yeah it sounds counterintuitive, but the busses that serve the same areas as the tram are a better option than the trams) and the absolute worst part is the actual lines.
there used to be 3 lines. lines 3, 4 and 5. line 3 would run from the center to the western part of the coastal section, 4 would go from the center to the eastern part of it and 5 would run the entirety of the coast. it was good, intuitive, logical and practical. lets say i wanted to go from the center to glyfada (yes im a masochist), id just hop on line 4 and id be there in 3-4 business days. but now ill hop on line 6, go to pikrodafni station and wait for line 7. ever since the change of lines a couple years back, trams have become even more infrequent and unreliable. they're not quite useless per se, but i sometimes struggle to see where all the money for the tram goes.
oh and the newest section of it, the piraeus expansion, is some of the worst public transport/city planning ive seen in a while. they first built it, ran some tests for a month, then deemed it too inefficient cause it would just get caught up in ridiculous port traffic, and stopped serving that part for some years, until they gave up (?) and put that section back into service..which is not used much because there's already a bunch of bus lines that cover the entire area quite well.
our system's a bit of a mess, but at least it's one of the 3 good things athens has to offer. the rest is trash.
This video was awesome! I was waiting for more than a year for it. Besides that It would be great if you could make another one for the Thessaloniki metro as soon as it opens to public.
I lived in Athens (one of the northeast suburbs, Ag Paraskevi) from March of 2002 to October of 2004. When I moved there, both Line 2 and the initial part of Line 3 had recently opened. While I lived there, the Line 3 extension to the airport, the suburban rail and the tram opened. In addition a two stop southern extension of Line 2 opened. I used the entire Athens transit network quite heavily include many trips to the beaches on both the east and west side of the Attica peninsula. While I was living there, many of the trolley buses where old orange Soviet built trolley buses which have since been retired.
Can you please also make a video about the metro, trolleybus, bus and tram system in Sofia, the Bulgarian capital? There are a lot of interesting things to see. Sofia's metro line 3, for example, is a very modern metro system with automatically locking doors and modern Inspiro trains from Siemens.
Maybe someday!
I did like the Athena Tickets in Athens when I visited in 2022. €0.90 got me 90 mins of unlimited rides on all transport. so it was quite cost effective. And the tickets for a few rides on all transit was also great. I wish more cities would have this kind of ticketing system, as it's great for tourists, who may not be able to use their card due to fees, or get/want a pay as you go card
Great tip! That’s a very reasonable price to travel and not worry how far you’re going & wondering if it’s the correct fare. Great idea. I wished all cities did this.
It's actually 1.20€/0.50€(reduced) for 90 mins everywhere in the big Athens fare zone
Thanks for the video, I live in Greece and use the system quite a bit. With regards to the metro the frequency can be a bit rubbish leading to overcrowding most of the time. I agree that line 1 is home to some beautiful stations. Finally, one little niggle is you can only get a city bus/metro ticket at a metro station or a manned instead of on a bus. I had to walk 25 minutes from a hotel in the suburbs to get one a few months ago which wasn't ideal.
With regards to trains they are building an underground 4 track line from Larissa station to Ska (where the X is) which will get rid of a lot of the grade crossings and hopefully mean a lot more frequent suburban service along with someday starting intercity trains from Patras. Larissa station is also being rebuilt.
Finally, at the moment there is no metro link to the main bus intercity station in the West of the city but I read somewhere they are building a new bigger bus station which will be on the metro.
Thanks again for the video
0:13 Yes it is still happening and it happened. I am from thessaloniki and I cannot believe it myself.
I must admit I don't quite agree with the title, but the video was accurate, well narrated, and informative. Athen's metro system has managed to connect the main port of the country, with the center of the capital and the main airport of the country, so it is super convenient for our welcomed visitors.
As someone who rides the trains a lot in Athens, our metro system really is a wonder. Especially for a system that is so different from just about any other system on the European Continent. You can ride the rails to most places in the city, and soon it will be even moreso.
Very few people know that Athens as one of oldest electric subway lines of the world
Speaking of cities of greek origin, you should take a look at the Naples (Italy) transit network. It's a pretty large transit system, that in recent years has undergo some difficulties, especially due to economic constraints, but it is recovering, and remains one of the oldest and most unique systems in Italy and Europe, with many interesting features. Due to the fact that the city is built on various hills, the main metro line has characteristics and gradients of a mountain railway, and it's the only metro line in the world to pass over itself at a different altitude with a long helical tunnel. All the metro stations have an artistic theme with numerous installations, such as that of the National Museum (the most important in the world for Roman antiquities from Pompeii). Many stations are built at great depths such as "Toledo" which is below sea level and is themed as an undersea station (it won prizes as the most beautiful station in Europe). Then there are 4 funicular lines, many bus lines, some tram and trolleybus lines and some elevators, maritime transport lines to the islands and towns of the gulf, as well as a series of suburban railway lines operated by various private companies. It even had a cable car in its glory days and a rack railways to the famous Vesuvius volcano.. Not bad for a city of 1 million inhabitants (the entire metropolitan area is three million).
My family lives near Naples! I hope he'll make a Naples video soon 😀
Thessaloniki metro opened today :)
Honestly Athens is basically European Taipei: two of its three metro lines were built at the turn of the millennium, it recently invested into trams and both cities have the same quality of life
Hey RM transit! You should check the new metro in Thessaloniki!!
i've been waiting for this video for a lot of time. thank you
Even RMTransit ain't safe for us Thessalonians
I found the Athens metro system to be very efficient and comfortable. But their buses... Man, that was rough
Yesterday have been disembarked 150 new electric buses. Things are changing eventually, about time! haha
Finally someone talking about our Transit System, I really like the Suburban Railway.
Interesting overview of a system i didnt know much about, Athens' transit system is a work in progress (so how infrequent is the airport rail service?) but it's pointed in the right direction. And of course, it wouldn't be an RM Transit video without the obligatory dunk on Toronto (6:40).
Line 3 runs every 36 minutes to the Airport, and there is 1 train per hour to Ano Liosia and 1 train per hour to Pireaus.
And the low frequency to the airport is because very few trains are double powered (7 in total of which 5 are in use while 2 are for backup). The rest are 3rd rail powered only
Your video was really really interesting! As a greek person, even I didn't know about many things you said. I would however like to point out an incident occuring in the greek railways just last year. In the valley of Tempi, there was a head-on collision of two trains with on total 354 passengers. At least 57 people died that day and it's the deadliest rail disaster in greek history. This all happened because of the ancient communication system (it wasn't even DIGITAL! The person who communicated with the drivers was writing about their direction in paper!!) in trains, the lack of funding and in the end the one train gained access to the rail road not knowing that it was heading straight to another one. Everyone in Greece is angry about the situation, many protests have been made and the matter has gone to EU grounds, and it shows just how underfunded the railroad system is. Most of the people that died were university students returning back home from a greek holiday (and many were unrecognisable because of the high temperatures after the crash) and the next day after the collision the greek government covered the "scene" with concrete. It is believed that this happened so a search wouldn't start in the scene because there was oil illegaly transferred in the passenger trains. May they rest in peace and i really hope justice will prevail. I know it is a bit off topic but i couldn't help but think about it cause this incident has scared the greek community the past year and it's worth searching. Have a nice day
The metro could do with some infill stations, especially one between Agios Antonios and Sepolia, I remember staying in Athens during a heatwave and having to walk every day for 20 minutes in the sweltering heat to get to it even though I stayed basically right on top of the line
Thank you for covering our transit system! I am a Greek living in France, and from all the cities i went to I think Montpellier would serve as excellent material for your channel due to its beautiful tram lines (which also became free for inhabitants recently).Love your work!
While it is mostly as you say, the system is not being maintained properly (especially line one) and is falling to disrepair, with the drivers union raising safety concerns especially after the big rail crash at Tempi last year. Accidents haven't happened yet, well, by accident.
Επιτέλους κάποιος το ανέφερε
I was expecting him to mention it, head on passenger train collisions are a thing of the past for most of the world but Greece
Thanks Reece for another excellent video. In particular the maps are excellent. And the whole video is very clear and concise! Pity that metro line one (but not the more modern lines) is so tainted by graffitti.
Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I always find graffitied trains quite aesthetic. It does give the impression that the trains are not being taken care of though, so I understand the frustration.
I rather like the graffiti, particularly the full car canvases. It’s really a work of art and nostalgic of NYC cars in the 80s. Like @landonstout5526 said, I’m not going to pretend this is a popular opinion because of course freshly tagged cars no matter how beautiful and creative the writing, will always for some symbolize lawlessness filth and urban decay, the very last images you want your mass transit system to evoke
Well, implementation for the renovation of 14 trains are underway, fortunately.
At least the windows are clear. Graffiti that covers the windows is the worst.
very nice overview of the big picture and planning of Athens transit system, something even us locals usually overlook. What would really improve the metro system is a long circular line that loops around the center as now if you want to go to a suburb near you, you need to take a train to downtown and then back out to that suburb. As someone else noted, digging under downtown Athens is very very slow because there are 3 layers of ancient cities and artifacts are found even today (some of which are beautifully displayed in the metro stations).
Wonderful video and I hope you had a great visit to the amazing country of Greece :)
A surprisingly positive review. Yeah, the Line 1 trains (which aren't great) spend a lot of time outside where they get graffitied. That and it serves three major football stadiums. The new lines are much more corporate and controlled. My main complaint about the new underground metro is that it's crowded during the day and very loud.
When I think of Athens, the only question that comes to mind is: Will I ever see them complete the main train station or will the construction site be declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site before then?
That's Thessaloniki
As a resident of Athens, I really appreciate videos like this. Athens public transportation system is among the best in the world. I go weeks without driving. One very important point that wasn’t mentioned I think, but perhaps arose in another comment is the fare. The regular fare is €1.20, while as a pensioner I pay half that (€0.60)!
Man this video could not have come out at a better time. I'll be in Athens in less than two weeks.
how was it?
6:30 One minor complaint, though: The Athens suburban-regional rail network is actually distinct from the Greek national rail network. Its north-south line (line A3) only goes as far as Chalkida (Chalcis), which is actually 250 km away from Thessaloniki. In fact, line A3 actually splits off from the Athens-Thessaloniki main line right after Oinoi train station for the 15 km stretch from there to Chalcis. Trains to Thessaloniki actually operate under the IC (InterCity) and ETR (ElettroTreno Rapido) brands, with ETR being the premium, higher-speed option between the two cities.
What do you mean by “doesn’t feel European”? If you mean the dirty, urine-smelling and unsafe metro systems of many European countries, then yes, Athen’s metro system is definitely NOT European. Because it’s clean, safe, modern. Other than that, very informative and well-made video. Here’s a sub.
You totally missed why our transit system doesn't feel like Europe. While you could easily comment on the non-existing maintenance plaguing the whole system, how come you didn't at LEAST mention the death of 57 people (28/2/2023) occurring from the absence of a proper telecommunication infrastructure on the intercity and suburban lines! Without intending to involve political matters in to this, the head minister of transport is still in office, re-elected after dropping his position days after the tragic incident, though on a different domain. Returning on the quality of transport in Greece, I easily foresee that this shortcoming will repeat itself, hopefully without casualties or any form of pain. As a citizen I don't have a view on why that occurred in the first place (bad EU funding? bad use of EU funding? high levels of corruption? all the different governments in office not attending the restated issue of not having proper telecoms in the system? the minister of transport stating weeks before the accident that it’s disrespectful to comment on the system’s security? I could go on for days).
Although your presentation is of high quality and I'm really happy that you've researched future metro expansions, I really want to bring your attention to this matter.
P.S.
I'm a big fan of channels that compare transit and everyday living matters of countries around the world. It really gives you a good idea of what the "essence" of another country feels like, since transit is a very big indicator of trust and respect, when countless people use it everyday, out of need and not for fun. I like that you captured the good facts about the potential of our transit, I also share that view and maybe think of our system in an even higher manner than you, but this is a way of showing what the current Greek essence really feels like. Feel free to research these events in more depth, finding out how unacceptable the reparation of all this is, more than a year later.
Make a video about our urban buses next (also a huge part of our transport, connecting with many metro/tram stations)!
As an inhabitant of Athens, I can verify most of the references of the video. Overall our transit system is quite effecrive despite some issues. Although I believe that the Tram coast line should had not begun from Piraeus. The Tram infrastructure has totally ruined the town and has increased the traffic jam due to narrowing the streets for importing the railway. Same for Athens centre as well.
Been waiting for this video! Thanks so much Reece 🙏
Thank you for this video. In fact I’ve never been to Athens but I’m interested to see that it has a good transit system. The transit systems often tell us quite a lot about the cultures where they are built and I think that is very true of this system.
Finally the time has come that you talk about the Athens transport system! I have been waiting for this day for a very long time. However I believe that you should have mentioned that the frequency of trains and buses is, depending on the day, either great or horrible. In the metro trains could come every 2-5 minutes and later on the same day every 10-25 minutes. Nobody really knows what the pattern is. Last but not least the second generation metro rolling stock (Mitsubishi Rotem) aren't that well maintained and are only serviced well when the train is filled with ads from a sponsor. Other than that it still is a great public transport system!
Ohh Athens, my city! I have to say it's a really nice video, but of course as a Greek I have to complain about stuff, hahah.
First, while T7 is really nice for short trips, it kinda is the wrong mode for the route, because it's just too slow for a decent part of the trips that it could attract. Hell, even the A1 bus that parallels it on Poseidonos Ave is faster. So given that Poseidonos Ave is one of the few avenues in Athens that a have a decent capacity and allow for fast speeds for vehicles, line T7 is pretty uncompetitive to cars and it is even uncompetitive to bus line A1 (at least when it has good frequences).
Also Athens suffers from the same kind of mentality that Toronto suffers, that is we like building metros beacause it helps with traffic, but we reaaally struggle convincing people to take space away from cars to surface transit. I mean, there are bus lanes (Ippokratous, Papadiamantopoulou) that were turned back to ON STREET PARKING, in a european country, because there wasn't the political will to police them. So yeah, while the metro is pretty decent, the surface transit is pretty slow and is generally lacking. If you are a tourist you don't notice that, but if you live here you absolutely do, since the metro coverage still isn't that large. So if you both live and work near a metro station your transit experience is going to be pretty good, if you live or work near a metro line, well it depends and if you don't live or work near a metro line your experience will range from kinda bad to appalling.
At least the metro is expanding at a kinda decent rate, without breaking the bank (that first phase of line 4 has a length of 12,8 km and 15 stations, with only 2 of them being built with cut and cover, and is budgeted at 1,5 billion euros or 1,62 billion dollars), but the surface transit isn't really taken seriously here.
As an Athenian myself, I'll say that for bus lines, it really really depends the line you're using. Because suburban bus lines are rarely stuck in traffic. But those in the centre of the city do. But compared to North American cities which Reece has consistently shown here, along with Not Just Bikes, it's not nearly as bad. Compared to other European cities, maybe.
"that is we like building metros because it helps with traffic, but we really struggle convincing people to take space away from cars to surface transit"
It's the same in Turkey as well. They make progress in Istanbul by opening new metro lines every year but since Ankara's metro is planned weirdly, even though it has 67 km length of metro and 33 km length of suburban rail, it's still not enough for Ankara. As a city that has the first underground metro in Turkey (not counting the LRT line (M1) in Istanbul) Ankara is now getting behind İzmir, Bursa, Antalya, Kayseri (Izmir 28 km of LRT 20 km of the tram, Bursa is also the same, Antalya and Kayseri have around 55 km of tram line). I wish they took Ankara and Izmir more seriously but at least they built lots of tram lines in Turkey in the last 20 years (Bursa, Antalya, Izmit, Gaziantep, Kayseri, Samsun, Eskisehir, Konya). They have more tram (Adana, Diyarbakir, Sanliurfa, Trabzon, Sakarya), suburban rail (Afyon, Konya), and metro (Mersin, Gebze, Gaziantep) projects in the queue. I wish they built these railway systems more oriented with intercity railways, bicycles, and pedestrians, but at least they are building something that is definitely better than nothing.
I hope the Athens metro will expand more and Thessaloniki Metro will open soon and safely komşu.
indeed, i used to live about 10 minutes away from a line 1 station. it is very convenient to use, and im honestly glad that my family can take advantage of it because the traffic is absolutely insane sometimes.
i actually left before turning 18, so i never drove in athens, but my mom did take me with her to do some chores around the city sometimes. the traffic was always so crazy and slow, and some streets are actually built weirdly which does not help car circulation very much. which is why my mother uses the metro to go to work now- it works fine and im glad for that but i really wish athens didnt have such a big issue with traffic. i also wish it was more walkable, because cars in athens WILL run you over if you dont rush through the street at the perfect time, while in italy, as long as rhe driver sees you, they will slow down and stop and let you cross the street with absolutely no issues.
and basically yeah, athenians have some driving tendences that catch me off guard whenever im back there, because i kind of got unused to the frenetic nature of its traffic.
Why don't you doing video on the new Thessaloniki Metro system
γενικα στην θεσσαλονικη υπαρχει συγκοινωνια??? Οχι,το μετρο θεωρω οτι θα αρχισει να φερνει πισω ενα μικρο κομματι συγκοινωνιας και αν φτιαχτει μια καλα συνδετικη γραμμη τραμ και ενα καλα εκτεταμένο δικτυο προαστιακου σιδηροδρομου,θεωρω οτι ενα βιντεο μπορει να κανει.
The metro experience is pretty good, I wish I could say the same about buses...
Please don't let it be forget that we lost 57 lives, mostly young people, due to government ignorance after lot of strikers and notifications from the workers, Greece took a lot of money and spend none in maintenance, not even finished installing detection systems that caused the crash of 2 trains....
You should do Sofia Bulgaria! I found that system surprisingly good when I visited!
I went to Athens in the summer of 2019, as the final stop of a journey with friends that brought us to Thessaloniki and Santorini before - and I liked how easy it was getting around the city with public transport.
I still have the travel pass that I loaded up as soon as we arrived and used it on buses, the metro to Piraeus, the tram to the southern beaches and the Metro to the airport (which was more convenient than taking a taxi, as our apartment was literally 3 minutes from a metro station). In all, Athens has one of the best transit systems out of all the places I've traveled to in Europe.
I would love to see a video with old Athens-Lavrio and Peloponnese meter guage railway
Thank you so much, I've waited for this video forever😁
as an Athenian who doesn't live in the center, but the western suburbs, i have some thinks to note. First the metro is generally good (apart from the extreme rush hours who is hugely crowded) BUT it's designed in an American manner where it mainly connects suburbs to center rather than suburb-to-suburb. For example in order to go to university, which is in the same western sector as me, i have to switch from the red line to the blue one. So i have to ride all the way to the center and back, when it's literally a neighbouring municipality. so with metro i do MORE time to get there than drive, even at rush hours with horrendous traffic....
Busses are not that good either, they have very slow intervals and as a result, they are always over-crowded
There is an orange line that will do this interconnections, but its building will start after 2027.
Thanks! I had been waiting for this video a long time!
As an Athenian who lived there for 18 years, I can tell that the metro system is very effective and helpful in commuting throughout the city. Our population is 5 million though, we definitely need more lines as well as a renovation of the suburban rail system. The only big problem in the metro nowadays is that it's often dangerous to ride, since it's full of people who seek for fights or to rob others. This can be found especially in line 1. If this is fixed by improving safety and adding more security guards and cameras, the metro will be perfect.
The suburban railway is in dilapidated state. The line north of larissis Station is single traked due to the construction of the underground lines and its in that state for almost a decade . Very little progress is being done causing massive delays and fewer frequencies. The signaling is also vandalized and unmaintained for much of the lines towards the north or the Peloponnese hindering the lines operations even more
As always, great informative content!
On my relatively recent visit to Athens, I was really impressed by the buses and trolleybuses, they were frequent, on time, easy to navigate online and had very clear real time information inside, making it possible to take them confidently even as a tourist who doesn't speak Greek. At the same time, the city looked extremely motorized and cars and bikes were moving super fast, making it a bit uncomfortable to walk around in some areas. Still though, my impression of Athens is definitely positive and I'm looking forward to going back.
I live in athens and if you excuse the terrible buses the metro lines are all really good. Youre never really more than 45 minutes to an hour away from your destination and i think thats pretty cool
In Europe we call a line "metro" depending on its capacity and operator; not how it was initially designed. A system with around 30.000+ people per direction per hour capacity operated by some municipality is often called a "metro;" whereas a similar system operated by the railway authority (on their tracks, hence mostly overground) is given some other name "RER, S-bahn, banliyö, the Overground, etc."
Yeah, just like in Vienna, where the Stadtbahn became metro later in the 1970s. But that's the point: later. The same in Athens. Today's Line 1 was indeed an S-Bahn, nothing more, nothing less. It's goal was to connect Pireus to Athens not to provide Athenians transport inside the city... That's where the word metro comes from. Metropolitain as the word for "big city". And the metro as a train where the purpose is to help you to travel inside that big city. Pireus and Athens were different cities/towns without today's one big continuous urban area. So it really just went from one place to the other just what a suburban railway does. Athen's M1 can be considered as a metro after it's route became one urban area. I guess since somewhere in the 50s maybe...
@@obarnabas Metro lines did not originate as repurposed rail lines. They were designed separately (often with entirely different standards) to carry workers from suburbs to city centers where the industry was concentrated. Though some metro lines are converted from existing rail lines.
I didn’t know Athens finally got himself some new trams. They look good, good choice although the CAF trams are also very good
Thank you for making this video Reece. There isn't much information on English-language UA-cam about Athens' public transport.
Santo Domingo is planning a line 3 similar to the athens one
Something to note: The Blue Line was recently expanded twice and now fully circles through three new stations to get to Piraeus. However, it skips out on two whole municipalities and people from there have to walk or use the bus which can take up to 30-40 minutes of extra travel time. This sucks because a lot of people live there and have jobs elsewhere.
Line 4 will take a decade to be made. They found an ancient theatre in one of the under construction stations
I love the transit system in Athens. It not the biggest and far from perfect, but they have managed to really make the best out of it. The utilization of the different lines and busses they do have is done in such a efficient way. Add the highspeed rail between Athens and Thessaloniki, and soon between Athens and Patras and you have a nice little transit network in mainland Greece that connects it all. Soon the Metro in Thess will open, and the extension to the airport will follow in a few years. Then, you can fly in to Thess, transit all your way down to Athens and Patra, and take the boat over to Italy. The ferries around to the islands are also very cool!
Don't have high hopes for Thessaloniki metro being completed. They first said that it was going to be completed in 2020, then 2021, then 2023, then again in summer of 2024, actually I ment november of 2024 and you get the picture (sorry for bad english).
5:00 Correction: Athens also has _exactly one station with_ platform edge lights. Locals still haven't figure out why.
6:50 to trains not ending up in the wrong lines and/or lost
8:16 The matro trains to the airport pass every 36 minutes if they are on time (which they never are) due to a lack of trains, but they have ordered new trains which will hopefully reduce the wait to its pre-2020 times (2020 was when a huge chunk of the eastern part of Line 3 opened).
If someone looks at Athens to learn how to build a good public transit system, I totally believe they need help. We aren't far from the time when stations (starting with Monastiraki) will have problems due to lack of maintainance. It's also worth mentioning that two of the three types of trains in the system are always broken (the two newer ones specifically), while the third one (the oldest and my favorite) is extremely loud and does not have air-conditioning. The other funny thing is that the system never knows where its trains are. I think _we_ should be taking lessons from Paris.
On a different note, my favorite station is Egaleo, because it's a very unique design for Athens with white tiles on the round walls-ceiling (it kinda reminds me of Paris but bigger). It's also very spacious and it even has an echo. It's worth mentioning that a piece of the tunnel behind Egaleo is better illuminated than the entire station of Agia Marina (the one directly after Egaleo).
As someone who lives in Athens, I would say the metro is great. The buses don't have enough bus lanes, so can get stuck in traffic and the Proastiakos (suburban railway) should have more stops on the north-south line. Also the metro could do with a circle line to connect suburbs, rather than another line to take people to the centre.
Also the bus capacities are often way too small and the schedules are really unreliable
The Thessaloniki metro is coming in November
3:50 The driver really didn't want to get filmed lol
Nice video! Regarding the at-grade crossings in central Athens: this is along the north-south axis of the "plus" sign, through west-central Athens. They started building a long tunnel to bring the train underground. The first sections are planned to go into use in 2025.
I never thought I'd see these stations that I've been seeing for my entire life in a youtube video, especially by someone who isn't Greek
I used the system and I am impressed. It is cheap. It was on time. I even rode on a regular bus at night & further away from the touristy center and it also was convenient. This was despite the in-bus station monitor not working which resulted in even the locals looking out of the window trying to read the small station signs to determine where we were currently at. Also, arrival time monitoring woked really well with google maps.
In general, I found Athens and especially Piraeus to be quite pleasant for such a big city (you really have to look at the Urban or Metro area population and not the city proper, just like in Paris) - if only it weren't that hot in summer!
love your content so much! hope that you will cover bucharest one day. i can give you footage and any information you wish
Interesting to see Greece on here!