Lausanne also has plans for an M3 Line and also has a high quality suburban line known as the LEB which connects to Metro underground at Lausanne’s main station!
Small correction. The LEB terminus is at Flon, one stop on the metro away from the main SBB/CFF station. So, if, as I did recently, you wanted to change from the federal railways to the LEB, you travel one stop on metro line M2! There is of course a common ticketing system covering all three rail operators.
As a local, it makes me laugh to read "high quality" used to describe the LEB. But I guess my standards are a bit too high. PS: I'm not hating on the LEB! But there's always a lot of controversy regarding their service.
@@LeZylox TBH the metro population of Lausanne is much bigger, as a lot of surrounding communes have fused into a city in practice, but are legally independent. Even the Metro M2 actually goes beyond the city in to the "town" of Epalinges.
Yes, but we must not forget that Switzerland has a very particular geography. Cities are wedged between mountains, lakes and rivers: they cannot really expand. So the cities are surrounded by big villages and small towns that are connected by train and many people commute every day. When they arrive at the Lausanne station, most people take the M2. Moreover, salaries are almost 3 times higher in Switzerland than in France and the city is connected by several boat lines to France. So there are a lot of French people who travel to Lausanne every day and arrive at the harbour of Ouchy which happens to be the beginning of the M2 line. So, this metro line is in a city of 200,000 inhabitants, but it serves on a daily basis a population that easily exceeds one million
When I saw the thumbnail, I thought 'Well, that's weird, looks like Lausanne...". So happy you covered Lausanne's 'metro' system! It's a very popular mode of transportation! At rush hour, it's always packed. I think they are thinking of making a M3 line at some point now.
Yup, the M3 line actually is in the same batch of projects as the creation of a double-track tunnel under the central station, and the enlargement of said station. It's going to go up north to the tiny airport. Also, in the defense of m1, its frequency is actually a bit better than 10 minutes, this being the holiday and weekend frequency. During the week, it actually oscillates between 5 and 7.5 minutes, and the line is massively important due to its connection to the huge university campus of Lausanne. There's also a tram line under construction rn, so the already awesome public transit system is actually expanding, and as a Lausannois, it's awesome to see.
The Lausanne M2 has more daily riders on average than Chicago's Brown Line did in 2019. That's a LOT considering the Brown Line is the 3rd busiest route in a city of 2.7 million.
The then-still-quite-new M1 (although it hadn't been named that yet, it was known as the TSOL) became a bit of a transit life-saver one summer in the early/mid 90s when a chemical tanker train derailed in the western station throat of Lausanne. The risk of explosion shut the main line for days (and caused the evacuation of surrounding buildings as I recall), and all trains to and from Geneva had to terminate at Renens. Passengers for Lausanne, and Sion, Brig, and the Simplon line to Italy beyond, could change at Renens and hop on the TSOL to get to Lausanne itself. That was the first time I ever rode the line.
I happened to arrive (by car) to the parking of the main train station when the accident just occured. The station and the parking were evacuated and closed. With my car inside for a couple of days... Commuting to Geneva was an interesting experience.
Found myself in Lausanne this summer when our Swiss friends wanted to take their boat out for a spin on Lake Geneva. Was extremely surprised when walking around the city and seeing a metro sign. I just had to go take a ride and I was surprised how much it reminded me of the Rennes metro Line A
The M1 line at peak hours have frequencies up to every 5 minutes, even though the line is almost only single track (even not every station is double track).
@@RMTransit You should look Bourdonnette! You have a trolleybus crossing the m1, meaning both electrics lines crossing with moving barriers (10!) too, its impressive the amount of tech and try/failed they had to put into that system so its work. (We cant even do that in cities skylines ahahah)
Please please please do a video on the Montreux-Glion-Rochers-de-Naye railway and the other systems in the Montreux area all the way to Blonay. It’s an agglomeration of small picturesque towns climbing upon steep hills criss crossed by funiculars and rack railways seemingly very well connected. It’s like a miniature metropolitan area with a miniature metro system. It’s dense and quirky, a very fine example of Swiss railways excellence.
I live in a city (Utrecht) that is basically of the same size and population as the urban area of Laussanne, and we have a lightrail network of similair size to this metro network, but it gets not even a third of the ridership. These numbers are impressive!
I'm guessing that a lot of that has to do with how easy it is to cycle around Utrecht, versus Lausanne's streets being so steep, making it harder for potential cyclists.
@@marcdefaoite There's that, and also because cycling infrastructure is non-existent and drivers here are surprisingly aggressive. Since the few infrastructure consist only of bike lanes that are sometimes sandwiched between two car lanes and always end right before dangerous intersections, it really is very dangerous to cycle there. The hills are less of a problem than they may seem, because using e-bikes you can bike everywhere effortlessly, and it is a lot cheaper than cars (the cost is actually comparable to a transit pass)
Utrecht is such a lovely city! It's larger than Lausanne but it feels like the opposite because there are far fewer cars there than in Lausanne. Here there's so many of them that buses get stuck in traffic during rush hour and because of that it's often faster to walk than use those buses. I honestly had a much more pleasant experience using public transit and cycling in Utrecht than in Lausanne because of the lack of cars. Utrecht also felt a lot calmer and more lively at the same time. And when I needed to drive it was also a better experience than Lausanne. I wish more cities would follow Utrecht's path!
@@alainterieur4837 Agreed! I really love Utrecht and the super cycle-friendliness. Interesting point as well that that contributes to the lower ridership for public transport, hadn't thought about it, but that is most likely true yeah. Just goes to show how important cycle infra is to get people to cycle and out of their car.
@@kurthackenberg9549 I lived in Lausanne for 8 years and loved the trolley buses, particularly because they ran on time. Has that changed in the last 15 or so years since I've lived there?
@@ballyhigh11 well I can’t talk so much about the busses that mainly run in the city center, which I would say run mostly on time, but since I have to commute from outside the city, the bus I usually take is regularly delayed by 5+ minutes, which is really annoying, especially since I often miss my connection… but I would say in general, it depends from where to where you are traveling. Sadly for me as said they are very rarely on time…
This reminds me, it would be cool to see a video of different transit ticketing systems. Because one great thing that Switzerland's public transport system has that's kind of under the radar is the nationally integrated ticketing system. As a foreigner in Switzerland this has been one of the most impressive parts of it. For example, I recently traveled from my local bus stop in southern Switzerland to a metro stop on Lausanne's M1 line. All I needed to do for tickets was to type in the name of my bus stop as the origin and the name of the metro stop as the destination into the SBB (Swiss federal railways) app. It then sold me a single ticket that was valid for a bus ride to my local train station, a train to a station where long-distance trains stop, two long-distance trains, and finally the trip on the Lausanne Metro. You can also buy tickets to many boats and even some ski lifts from the app! Also, there are no fare gates almost anywhere - tickets are checked only on an inspection basis, which makes getting on the trains incredibly convenient.
And even better, there is the Fairtig system... An application on your smartphone, you push the button on the green at the start, start of the race found by geolocation, you cross Switzerland or the city, you arrive at your destination , you push the button of the application on red, the application calculates the route and always finds the best price, in the evening, you are debited from your credit card, even the old people have understood the system, no machine where it you have to type the destination, the class, the discount etc.... Thanks to the geolocation it works and even with a foreign card!😀
As others have pointed out, the M1 used to be called the TSOL (Tramway du Sud Ouest Lausannois). It was renamed when the M2 opened. The TSOL was built out of necessity as Lausanne is a city with 140k inhabitants but has both the EPFL (federal) and UNIL (cantonal) schools which outgrew their premises and decided to relocate in a field out of town. Initially, city planners tried to absorb the need of transport with many bus lines. That's why EPFL was built around a central alley with large bus stops. However, they quickly understood that this would not scale as there are more than 25k students attending the 2 schools today. A light train line was identified as a potential solution but the reason it is single lane with many level crossings is due to the Swiss democratic process. Such "large" infrastructure projects are often submitted to the popular vote. Therefore, to increase the chances for being accepted the costs were kept to the minimum. Thanks to optimised placement of the passing loops, they were able to keep the frequency at 5 min during peak hours though. As many things in Switzerland, the metro system was the result of a long series of compromises.
Hi, I’m currently living in Lausanne and I take the metro along my way to and from my school. It’s indeed very small like you said, and usually everything is quite efficient. I like the metro as due to a small city like Lausanne, going in between stations is relatively quick. Though, it can be very claustrophobic! Generally, it’s just the metro to me! Funny to see a video about where I am living and about a general aspect of my life!
I love this city, it has everything of an important metropolis while being in fact quite small, the metro, the urbanity, the nightlife (good for its size), of course the lake and the mountains nearby, so glad to study there ! Vive Lausanne et la Suisse
I live in Brescia, a City in Italy that has a population of around 200000 and has a single line metro (although it will be integrated with trams in the future) While it didn't beat any ridership records, it was a relatively colossal Investment in trying to cure the city's chronic addition to cars. So in a sense I think even small cities should be ready to invest in good transport even if not really profitable.
Little fun fact, Lausanne's cathedral still has to this day a night watcher, who's now basically paid to yell the time it is, every hour, every night. And this night watcher is actually the person who recorded the station announcement for the m2
could you do a video about CEVA rail in Geneva, and the "voie verte" above it? its a pretty insane project: Part of the existing rail line was moved into a shallow cut-and-cover tunnel, and they build a bikepath+pedestrian path above it, which would have not been possible without the tunnel. It also connects a former isolated railline to the east directly with geneva main station, like a RER line
@@nicolasblume1046 I am thinking more about the integration with the existing network and maximal capacity, not about the construction method. Ceva just seems to have done everything right. (And is already open ;-) )
As a local🇨🇭, the most important thing isn't really the metro but the public system as a all, you can jump out the train in the middle of Lausanne take te metro to the last stop and take the bus to go in the country side and you won't be waiting a lot at the station.
I don’t know if you have done a video on it, but another small city with a metro line to look at is the Lille metro. It has two lines that are fully automated, which work really well…when it works at all! I visited the city a few years back and it was one of the more interesting aspects of the city.
That's fun, following your channel for some time and seeing you cover the "metro" I take every day to work. :) Nice overview by the way. A third line is beeing planned, and even if construction has been delayed somewhat, a line M3 will serve the north-west area of town.
1:45 You said the frequency is around 10min, but that's on Sundays and in the evening. During rush hour it actually is only 5min, and 7.5 the rest of the day. It's often not really on time but the headway is almost always well respected. Which is pretty impressive because of the relatively long stretches of single tracks in some places (especially between Montelly and Malley)! Also concerning the M2, the ridership has increased a little. In 2017 it was around 82,000 daily people. It probably is even more today. To accommodate for that change they even increased the frequency to 2min during rush hour!
Sounds much better than the MetroLink we have in St. Louis (that is also light rail). Like, we have way less stops with less frequent trains. 15-30 minute headways depending on day of the week/holidays and time. And that goes out into the counties, so our service population is over a million.
The M1 is a metro without being one because when it was made it was considered a tram, not a metro (his name was TSOL "Tramway du Sud-Ouest Lausannois"). After they have built the second line M2, that was a real metro system, they renamed the TSOL as M1 so to have two metro lines and an uniform naming. Now they are building a new M3 to complete the city coverage (tram or metro? depends on how you look at it).
The M3 is gonna be a full on metro, with almost the exact same infrastructure system as the M2. There is a tram line under construction as well though, which will replace bus line 17, which is currently really overcrowded and slowed down by traffic, desipite its importance to the city. So a bunch of projects to look forward to.
I live in Lausanne and take the M2 every single day, several times a day. I used to take them M1 as a student as well. What makes it interesting is the bit between Flon and Bessiere. Instead of going in a straight line, they chose to connect 2 popular places (Flon and Riponne), making the line do some kind of an S. Not the most efficient timewise but super useful for transit within the core center. The stops are also fairly close to each other in the center, you could walk, but due to the atypical geography of Lausanne, it's just easier to ride the M2. It's too crowded during rush hours though and there is no way to increase capacity, you'd have to enlarge the stations, which sounds like a crazy idea. The only thing they can do is increase frequencies but it's already at 2-3min during rush hours between the main station and La Sallaz. Can't wait for M3 to be operational, it can't come soon enough. But with the current fiasco of the renovation of the main station.... *rolls eyes*
Lausanne Metro actually does have steel wheels that run on a normal track and it’s rubber tires on extra wheels help it get up steep hills at a steady 60 kph
I do find it quite weird that a city with around the same population as Kelowna, BC or Telford, UK has 2 'metro' lines but it's really interesting and cool.
I’ve always thought that a metro or light rail system could work in Kelowna in spite of its size because of how linear the city is. I love that you used Telford as your other example as it’s pretty much the only UK city who’s layout I’m familiar with having spent a bit of time there a few years ago. :)
The smallest US city with a subway / metro is Camden, NJ. With a population of 71,700 it's part of the 14 mile (22.5 km) PATCO Speed Line between Center City Philadelphia and Lindenwold, NJ. Originally it was part of the Delaware River Bridge Line, run by PTC and briefly SEPTA between 1936 and 1968. PATCO took over in early 1969. Run by the Delaware River Port Authority (similar operation to NY and North Jersey's PATH system) Camden stops are located at City Hall, Broadway (the Walter Rand Transportation Center) and Ferry Ave. Camden is also served the NJ Transit River Line Light Rail running from the Camden Waterfront to Trenton, NJ. It's a one-zone fare. It's $1.60 each way and for seniors, children, Military or disabled 75 cents. The River Line opened in 2004 and the rolling stock is Diesel powered.
Lausanne is very busy city despite its size (Olympics Comitee, international organizations, 2 Universities and congested city centre). Also there is very little parking space even for European standards, so without this system it would be very hard to commute.
At some point you should really do a similar video about the Italian city of Brescia which has a Copenhagen style metro while being even smaller than Lausanne
I think you might have talked about it as part of other videos, but I'll highlight the Automated Light Metro of Brescia (196k) with 13,7 km of track, 17 stations and ~50k daily ridership. Overall, a similar situation to Lausanne, minus the mountains.
@@professorspark2361 Brescia is a quite wealthy city, the centre of a very important industrial area, so the municipality had the money (and the ambition) to invest in such a big infrastructural project, that didn't came without controversies among the population
Brescia planned to build even a line 2 (more a Western branch of the existing line, as it was designed) but that project has been abandoned. Now they're planning to build two tram lines, instead. Anyway metro population of Brescia is bigger than Lausanne's
I think Pittsburgh is the smallest city in the USA that has a rail transit system. But it is archaic and needs to be modernized. During the PRR days, pittsburgh had several trolley lines that linked up with intercity trains. Now it only has 2 trolley lines and 2 intercity trains at odd hours. Faster, Modernized, and more frequent Passenger Trains (including Sleepers) to Mid atlantic and great lakes cities would help.
I'm so glad you made an episode about Lausanne! I suggested it in a comment a few months ago; I wonder how much influence that had. It's an infrastructure-interesting and very beautiful city in general, so if you haven't been there yourself, I hope you get to go soon.
Wow I predicted from the title that you will be talking about Lausanne. I was there once, and for a city that size, I was surprised to see a metro! Thats why Lausanne was my first thought.
And I'll add that Rennes transit network is also a good example of what can be done by small/medium towns. Not just about the subway, its bus network is good too. Rennes has also a very particular urbanism (green belt) which is rare in France. It is not a perfect network (no one is) and it has some drawbacks, but I think it is still one of the best in France given the town's size.
Line M2 is certainly fascinating. Prior to the modernisation it featured a most unusual single-track, single-car shuttle between the two lower stations, running parallel to the main service and the second station was at a higher level to the other. Interesting that they're building a new tunnel at the lower end though... I didn't know that. Anyway, assuming I get to Geneva at some point in the near-ish future, I'll certainly travel to Lausanne just to try it out. BTW, regarding unusual systems, I'll just say: Glasgow Subway!
@@RMTransit thanks to your channel, you are showing what is possible around the world, even in tiny cities. So, in a sense, your work has influence (in the long term) on how many people are taking an automated metro to work.
I can remember when i've been to lausanne one time ( i'm a swiss person) and it was such a weird experience, if you call it metro or not it's a unique experience riding on this transport vehicle uphill!
Very nice! You should note some of the places that M1 and M2 covers. The reason M1 has such ridership is because it connects people to two important educational institutions - EPFL (where I am at right now) and next door UNIL. UNIL itself has three stations on M1! In addition, I have friends who take the metro every day from Renens, the terminus station, into Ecublens where EPFL is located to study. M2 basically connects the important places in the city such as the lake, the university hospital (CHUV), the train station and the city center where the two metro lines meet (Lausanne-Flon). In addition to the Lausanne Metro Line you should also cover the Réseau express régional vaudois (RER Vaud) which is a regional train station in the canton of Vaud where Lausanne is in. I take that train every couple of days to go into city center, and it’s just always an absolutely wonderful experience.
I suggest a video about Tyne and Wear metro. It’s also 2 lines but it has a weird shape where one of the lines passes the same station twice and it has a pretty good coverage of Tyne and Wear agglomeration with 60 stations. It is more metro-ish with just a few level crossings and fully isolated in the other parts of the track also featuring underground tunnels and cool metro bridges. It’s also interesting how despite having 12 min frequency on each line, they managed to get 3 min frequency on peak at the main shared sections with extra trains running and how they used a lot of existing infrastructure to create this system
Meanwhile my city has 300k people and growing rapidly and not only does it have no metro, there's 45 minute headways on buses. The bus network coverage is actually really good so if headways were reduced to 15 minutes or less, then it'd be usable on a daily basis.
I suspect that being automated is a significant factor in its success. With drivers, I don't think that you could afford the frequency, and lower frequency would mean lower ridership.
Lausanne has about 140'000 people. But I understand that a lot of people fail to distinct between city and urban area. It would be nice to clarify when talking about city sizes though.
You might want to know about the following situation. In Bucharest, there are 4 metro lines, built before 1989 in a dictatorship-like work regime. There is still room for expanding it, and the foremost plan was to build the 5th line across some neighbourhood with a significant population, which has a distinctive road going all around it. The other end of this line was to be on the other side of Bucharest, but they found it easier (”safe for work”) to chop the line into smaller segments that they would build one at the time (more than one at a time may have been too straining). So, they got working on the first segment of this line, which is completed as of now. The thing is, it only has one connection with the rest of the system, at one of its ends. If it was completed, it would have by itself several tens of thousands of travels per day, adn it would cross the rest of the system in multimple points, but now it only has 10k/day or less. So, there is one line which could carry 1000 people at a time, but it only carries 30 (as I witnessed), and momentarily requires to change/switch even 2 times to get to some places such as the northern zone, where many corporate buildings (with the jobs they accomodate) are. It is enough to look out for a map of the Bucharest metro to see that neither does it look like it could serve more than 10k a day. By the way, neither is the administration preparing now to work to expand his 5th line and make it useful, because they thought that they need first to add another station to another line.
I was there a couple of times, lausanne is super steep. Like you are in your ground floor apartment and you see the 5 or more floor on the building below. Think of it of a steeper montreal.
I live in Lausanne and you just forgot one thing to mention is that a "new" line will be created the M3. It's just 5 bew station but it'll likely increase a lot the ridership as it'll pass in a crowded area
How is the constructionof the M3 progressing? About 10 years ago I used to live near Morges but commute and work in Lausanne so I was familiar with most of the M1 and M2 lines
On small metros with steep grades, would be interesting to get a video about Naples with its one (or more?) metro lines, funiculars, and weird regional rail lines
I find your videos very gripping and enjoyable. thank you!! Looking forward to seeing Moscow's metro system Explained from you It is a very unique system with a lot of interesting features, being one of the biggest and most loaded transit systems in Europe. As for me, it is one of the best examples of a transit system based on loop lines and radius lines. Best wishes from Moscow!
To understand, why this metro line M2 is that successful, you should consider that not only this metro line is steep, but also the roads within the city. And most main streets go up and down the hills in a zig-zag-pattern. So going up the city in a bus took a lot of time before the opening of M2. This line was planned as spine and lifeline of the hole public transport system. It's an integrated and through connected transport system. So, much of the bus lines now start at one of the metro M2 stations, and do not anymore the hole up-and-down to the main train station. Even by taking to different modes of transport, you will safe time, as the M2 goes straight upwards. The M2-line in Lausanne goes from 373 meters over sea level up to 711 Meter over sea level (measured in swiss reference national height network). So the M2 means a huge saving of time, but also a huge saving in men power, or in bus kilometers. And that explains pretty much its success.
You should have a look at the village metro in Serfaus in Austria, this is not a place you would expect to find a metro line. It was recently upgraded too. This would top Lausanne easily…
Miami Metro has its own issues leading to its poor ridership but I'm glad you even mentioned it. When I posted my video of it years ago the comment sections was unanimously saying "Miami has a metro? That HAS TO BE new! I didn't exist in 1984 when I was there." Ironically 84 was the year it opened lol.
Thank you for making these videos. You should do Athens metro too. Lately, it got expanded and a 4rth line is coming up. The "1rst line" dates back to the 19th century.
There are a lot of things to take into consideration when offering a subway system expecting people to use it. It is not only a great service that will bring riders.
@@gentuxable the tram tunnel is very interesting because of the island platforms which requires the one-directional-trams to drive on the left because they have the doors only on the right side.
I was a bit irritated in the first glance, because I wrongly understood Luzon instead of Lausanne. It's a nice video about a small but efficient metro network. 🖐👴
On the point of rail naming nomenclature, at this point, I've seen enough metro/subway/light rail/etc. that fall on fringe cases (by virtue of frequency, train types, route design, etc.) that I think it's safer to just call a railway a commuter/suburban/high speed/etc. rail instead. Thanks for the informative video as always! P.S.: this line reminds me a bit of the Shintetsu Arima Line.
Great video! It would be a nice added touch if you could talk a bit about the built environment around some of the stations in these kinds of videos. As an old European city, Lausanne can undoubtedly take advantage of existing density. Would a similar transit system be as effective in a different city with a different context? Of course you can't just drop a system from one city into another. I know you're a transit guy and not necessarily a city planning guy, but density around transit stops is an interesting and important part of any larger transit plan. I would personally love to see stuff about that in future videos when you talk about transit systems around the world.
I was there in June. Some of the M2 stops have fun audio “themes” to queue you as to which stop the car is approaching. Once the segment with single track is converted to double track, will that make Lausanne the smallest city with a true metro?
Single-track or not, 3-minute headways is a better metro than most of the world. Track doesn't define the categorization, service quality does. If you had a single track train with 3-minute headways anywhere in the world, we'd call it both a metro and a feat of engineering and organization.
To be precise, the single track segment won't be converted. But a new tunnel next to it will be built, with a new station for the railway, directly under the railway station to reduce transit time. The old station will be used for a third line (M3) who will reuse a part of the m2 double track tunnel to the next station and then go to a new area of the city.
Lausanne also has plans for an M3 Line and also has a high quality suburban line known as the LEB which connects to Metro underground at Lausanne’s main station!
Small correction. The LEB terminus is at Flon, one stop on the metro away from the main SBB/CFF station. So, if, as I did recently, you wanted to change from the federal railways to the LEB, you travel one stop on metro line M2! There is of course a common ticketing system covering all three rail operators.
@@ThunderTheBlackShadowKitty how is it clickbait?
As a local, it makes me laugh to read "high quality" used to describe the LEB. But I guess my standards are a bit too high.
PS: I'm not hating on the LEB! But there's always a lot of controversy regarding their service.
could you pls make a video about the metro system in Dortmund, Germany? It used to be a tram system but was transformed into a metro
They are also currently in the process of building a tram - only one line, but the first in Switzerland on the standard gauge.
70K/day for the population of that area and the size of the system is impressive. It's close to the LA Metro at 74K/day.
Literally 40% of the population of the city use this train! :O
@@LeZylox TBH the metro population of Lausanne is much bigger, as a lot of surrounding communes have fused into a city in practice, but are legally independent. Even the Metro M2 actually goes beyond the city in to the "town" of Epalinges.
Yes, but we must not forget that Switzerland has a very particular geography. Cities are wedged between mountains, lakes and rivers: they cannot really expand. So the cities are surrounded by big villages and small towns that are connected by train and many people commute every day. When they arrive at the Lausanne station, most people take the M2.
Moreover, salaries are almost 3 times higher in Switzerland than in France and the city is connected by several boat lines to France. So there are a lot of French people who travel to Lausanne every day and arrive at the harbour of Ouchy which happens to be the beginning of the M2 line. So, this metro line is in a city of 200,000 inhabitants, but it serves on a daily basis a population that easily exceeds one million
I agree, even with differences in various metrics the per capita ridership in Lausanne is very impressive!
@@RMTransit Actually, the metro's capacity is not enough for the number of riders.
When I saw the thumbnail, I thought 'Well, that's weird, looks like Lausanne...". So happy you covered Lausanne's 'metro' system! It's a very popular mode of transportation! At rush hour, it's always packed. I think they are thinking of making a M3 line at some point now.
Les lausannois se reconnaîtront 😉
Grave la même !
j'ai tout de suite reconnu le gros bloc gris du musée
Yup, the M3 line actually is in the same batch of projects as the creation of a double-track tunnel under the central station, and the enlargement of said station. It's going to go up north to the tiny airport.
Also, in the defense of m1, its frequency is actually a bit better than 10 minutes, this being the holiday and weekend frequency. During the week, it actually oscillates between 5 and 7.5 minutes, and the line is massively important due to its connection to the huge university campus of Lausanne.
There's also a tram line under construction rn, so the already awesome public transit system is actually expanding, and as a Lausannois, it's awesome to see.
The Lausanne M2 has more daily riders on average than Chicago's Brown Line did in 2019. That's a LOT considering the Brown Line is the 3rd busiest route in a city of 2.7 million.
@@francoisperrot4890 the city proper is about 2.7 million. The CTA mostly just runs within the city limits with only a few exceptions.
It takes a lot of riders!
@@Mergatroid it may run only within city limits but it serves the whole area, but I get most of outside Chicago are bad car suburbs
The then-still-quite-new M1 (although it hadn't been named that yet, it was known as the TSOL) became a bit of a transit life-saver one summer in the early/mid 90s when a chemical tanker train derailed in the western station throat of Lausanne. The risk of explosion shut the main line for days (and caused the evacuation of surrounding buildings as I recall), and all trains to and from Geneva had to terminate at Renens. Passengers for Lausanne, and Sion, Brig, and the Simplon line to Italy beyond, could change at Renens and hop on the TSOL to get to Lausanne itself. That was the first time I ever rode the line.
Such an interesting story! Thats a really under-appreciated element of strong and high capacity urban transport! Resiliency for intercity transport!
I happened to arrive (by car) to the parking of the main train station when the accident just occured. The station and the parking were evacuated and closed. With my car inside for a couple of days... Commuting to Geneva was an interesting experience.
Found myself in Lausanne this summer when our Swiss friends wanted to take their boat out for a spin on Lake Geneva. Was extremely surprised when walking around the city and seeing a metro sign. I just had to go take a ride and I was surprised how much it reminded me of the Rennes metro Line A
It is a French light metro after all!
@@RMTransit People in the transit world tend to be very surprised by how well these systems perform!
Rennes just opened up a new métro line (Ligne B).
A LAUSANNE C'EST LE LAC LÉMAN
The M1 line at peak hours have frequencies up to every 5 minutes, even though the line is almost only single track (even not every station is double track).
It's impressive and shows just what is possible when your infrastructure is designed around the service!
@@RMTransit You should look Bourdonnette! You have a trolleybus crossing the m1, meaning both electrics lines crossing with moving barriers (10!) too, its impressive the amount of tech and try/failed they had to put into that system so its work. (We cant even do that in cities skylines ahahah)
Please please please do a video on the Montreux-Glion-Rochers-de-Naye railway and the other systems in the Montreux area all the way to Blonay. It’s an agglomeration of small picturesque towns climbing upon steep hills criss crossed by funiculars and rack railways seemingly very well connected. It’s like a miniature metropolitan area with a miniature metro system. It’s dense and quirky, a very fine example of Swiss railways excellence.
I live in a city (Utrecht) that is basically of the same size and population as the urban area of Laussanne, and we have a lightrail network of similair size to this metro network, but it gets not even a third of the ridership. These numbers are impressive!
I'm guessing that a lot of that has to do with how easy it is to cycle around Utrecht, versus Lausanne's streets being so steep, making it harder for potential cyclists.
@@marcdefaoite There's that, and also because cycling infrastructure is non-existent and drivers here are surprisingly aggressive. Since the few infrastructure consist only of bike lanes that are sometimes sandwiched between two car lanes and always end right before dangerous intersections, it really is very dangerous to cycle there. The hills are less of a problem than they may seem, because using e-bikes you can bike everywhere effortlessly, and it is a lot cheaper than cars (the cost is actually comparable to a transit pass)
Utrecht is such a lovely city! It's larger than Lausanne but it feels like the opposite because there are far fewer cars there than in Lausanne. Here there's so many of them that buses get stuck in traffic during rush hour and because of that it's often faster to walk than use those buses. I honestly had a much more pleasant experience using public transit and cycling in Utrecht than in Lausanne because of the lack of cars. Utrecht also felt a lot calmer and more lively at the same time. And when I needed to drive it was also a better experience than Lausanne. I wish more cities would follow Utrecht's path!
@@alainterieur4837 Agreed! I really love Utrecht and the super cycle-friendliness. Interesting point as well that that contributes to the lower ridership for public transport, hadn't thought about it, but that is most likely true yeah. Just goes to show how important cycle infra is to get people to cycle and out of their car.
The moment I saw the thumbnail I already knew what city you were talking about. Lausanne is such a beautiful city with great public transport.
Definitely true... when their busses are on time, which sadly for me is rarely the case... but yes, it is a really beautiful city!
It really is!
@@kurthackenberg9549 I lived in Lausanne for 8 years and loved the trolley buses, particularly because they ran on time. Has that changed in the last 15 or so years since I've lived there?
@@ballyhigh11 well I can’t talk so much about the busses that mainly run in the city center, which I would say run mostly on time, but since I have to commute from outside the city, the bus I usually take is regularly delayed by 5+ minutes, which is really annoying, especially since I often miss my connection… but I would say in general, it depends from where to where you are traveling. Sadly for me as said they are very rarely on time…
@@kurthackenberg9549 How is it compared to Tallinn in punctuality? :-)
This reminds me, it would be cool to see a video of different transit ticketing systems. Because one great thing that Switzerland's public transport system has that's kind of under the radar is the nationally integrated ticketing system. As a foreigner in Switzerland this has been one of the most impressive parts of it.
For example, I recently traveled from my local bus stop in southern Switzerland to a metro stop on Lausanne's M1 line. All I needed to do for tickets was to type in the name of my bus stop as the origin and the name of the metro stop as the destination into the SBB (Swiss federal railways) app. It then sold me a single ticket that was valid for a bus ride to my local train station, a train to a station where long-distance trains stop, two long-distance trains, and finally the trip on the Lausanne Metro.
You can also buy tickets to many boats and even some ski lifts from the app! Also, there are no fare gates almost anywhere - tickets are checked only on an inspection basis, which makes getting on the trains incredibly convenient.
And even better, there is the Fairtig system... An application on your smartphone, you push the button on the green at the start, start of the race found by geolocation, you cross Switzerland or the city, you arrive at your destination , you push the button of the application on red, the application calculates the route and always finds the best price, in the evening, you are debited from your credit card, even the old people have understood the system, no machine where it you have to type the destination, the class, the discount etc.... Thanks to the geolocation it works and even with a foreign card!😀
As others have pointed out, the M1 used to be called the TSOL (Tramway du Sud Ouest Lausannois). It was renamed when the M2 opened. The TSOL was built out of necessity as Lausanne is a city with 140k inhabitants but has both the EPFL (federal) and UNIL (cantonal) schools which outgrew their premises and decided to relocate in a field out of town. Initially, city planners tried to absorb the need of transport with many bus lines. That's why EPFL was built around a central alley with large bus stops. However, they quickly understood that this would not scale as there are more than 25k students attending the 2 schools today. A light train line was identified as a potential solution but the reason it is single lane with many level crossings is due to the Swiss democratic process. Such "large" infrastructure projects are often submitted to the popular vote. Therefore, to increase the chances for being accepted the costs were kept to the minimum. Thanks to optimised placement of the passing loops, they were able to keep the frequency at 5 min during peak hours though. As many things in Switzerland, the metro system was the result of a long series of compromises.
Hi, I’m currently living in Lausanne and I take the metro along my way to and from my school. It’s indeed very small like you said, and usually everything is quite efficient. I like the metro as due to a small city like Lausanne, going in between stations is relatively quick. Though, it can be very claustrophobic! Generally, it’s just the metro to me! Funny to see a video about where I am living and about a general aspect of my life!
I love this city, it has everything of an important metropolis while being in fact quite small, the metro, the urbanity, the nightlife (good for its size), of course the lake and the mountains nearby, so glad to study there !
Vive Lausanne et la Suisse
You forgot the '3rd metro line'- the LEB.
Also a key success point of the metro in integrated ticketing.
I live in Brescia, a City in Italy that has a population of around 200000 and has a single line metro (although it will be integrated with trams in the future) While it didn't beat any ridership records, it was a relatively colossal Investment in trying to cure the city's chronic addition to cars. So in a sense I think even small cities should be ready to invest in good transport even if not really profitable.
Looking at you Belfast
I was in Lausanne with my family, we rode the metro, and it was a nice experience! Every station had a unique sound!
As a daily user of the route, it's kinda annoying tbh
Little fun fact, Lausanne's cathedral still has to this day a night watcher, who's now basically paid to yell the time it is, every hour, every night.
And this night watcher is actually the person who recorded the station announcement for the m2
Lausnne is my favorite city of Switzerland; with or without "metro".
Lausanne has them all. M2 (+M3)Ruber Tired Metro, high floor light rail M1, medium floor metre gauge LEB, the future low floor tram, and Trolleybus
could you do a video about CEVA rail in Geneva, and the "voie verte" above it? its a pretty insane project: Part of the existing rail line was moved into a shallow cut-and-cover tunnel, and they build a bikepath+pedestrian path above it, which would have not been possible without the tunnel. It also connects a former isolated railline to the east directly with geneva main station, like a RER line
the whole Leman express project is really interesting i'd have to say
Ceva is kind of what I think Montréal's REM should have been. A video about it would be fantastic.
@@StefanBracher the REM is still fantastic. Cut and cover is cheaper than a bored tunnel, but still quite a bit more expensive than elevated rail
@@nicolasblume1046 I am thinking more about the integration with the existing network and maximal capacity, not about the construction method. Ceva just seems to have done everything right. (And is already open ;-) )
As a local🇨🇭, the most important thing isn't really the metro but the public system as a all, you can jump out the train in the middle of Lausanne take te metro to the last stop and take the bus to go in the country side and you won't be waiting a lot at the station.
Yes the integration of transport services in Switzerland is great
I don’t know if you have done a video on it, but another small city with a metro line to look at is the Lille metro. It has two lines that are fully automated, which work really well…when it works at all! I visited the city a few years back and it was one of the more interesting aspects of the city.
I talked about it in my VAL video!
Lille isn't really small tho, the whole metro area is over a million
I love the Lausanne metro (and the city in itself) it is surprisingly more than adequate for a city this size! Thank you for this video
That's fun, following your channel for some time and seeing you cover the "metro" I take every day to work. :) Nice overview by the way. A third line is beeing planned, and even if construction has been delayed somewhat, a line M3 will serve the north-west area of town.
1:45 You said the frequency is around 10min, but that's on Sundays and in the evening. During rush hour it actually is only 5min, and 7.5 the rest of the day. It's often not really on time but the headway is almost always well respected. Which is pretty impressive because of the relatively long stretches of single tracks in some places (especially between Montelly and Malley)!
Also concerning the M2, the ridership has increased a little. In 2017 it was around 82,000 daily people. It probably is even more today. To accommodate for that change they even increased the frequency to 2min during rush hour!
I think Hamburg could be also interesting topic for you - a mostly elevated century old metro + the newly automated S-Bahn train endeavors.
Absolutely! It's a fascinating city for any rail lover!
@@RMTransit Hamburg has the most rail lines in the world, the issue is that 90% of them are in one building...
I love these shorter videos. You tell all there is to be told about these smaller metros, so it fits nicely. Well done!
My dad worked both on Lyon metro and Lausanne's metro. The inclination of lausanne in some stations is insane !
Sounds much better than the MetroLink we have in St. Louis (that is also light rail). Like, we have way less stops with less frequent trains. 15-30 minute headways depending on day of the week/holidays and time. And that goes out into the counties, so our service population is over a million.
The M1 is a metro without being one because when it was made it was considered a tram, not a metro (his name was TSOL "Tramway du Sud-Ouest Lausannois").
After they have built the second line M2, that was a real metro system, they renamed the TSOL as M1 so to have two metro lines and an uniform naming.
Now they are building a new M3 to complete the city coverage (tram or metro? depends on how you look at it).
The M3 is gonna be a full on metro, with almost the exact same infrastructure system as the M2.
There is a tram line under construction as well though, which will replace bus line 17, which is currently really overcrowded and slowed down by traffic, desipite its importance to the city. So a bunch of projects to look forward to.
I live in Lausanne and take the M2 every single day, several times a day. I used to take them M1 as a student as well. What makes it interesting is the bit between Flon and Bessiere. Instead of going in a straight line, they chose to connect 2 popular places (Flon and Riponne), making the line do some kind of an S. Not the most efficient timewise but super useful for transit within the core center. The stops are also fairly close to each other in the center, you could walk, but due to the atypical geography of Lausanne, it's just easier to ride the M2. It's too crowded during rush hours though and there is no way to increase capacity, you'd have to enlarge the stations, which sounds like a crazy idea. The only thing they can do is increase frequencies but it's already at 2-3min during rush hours between the main station and La Sallaz. Can't wait for M3 to be operational, it can't come soon enough. But with the current fiasco of the renovation of the main station.... *rolls eyes*
Lausanne Metro actually does have steel wheels that run on a normal track and it’s rubber tires on extra wheels help it get up steep hills at a steady 60 kph
I love your channel you as you cover metro systems people might otherwise be unaware of.
I do find it quite weird that a city with around the same population as Kelowna, BC or Telford, UK has 2 'metro' lines but it's really interesting and cool.
I’ve always thought that a metro or light rail system could work in Kelowna in spite of its size because of how linear the city is.
I love that you used Telford as your other example as it’s pretty much the only UK city who’s layout I’m familiar with having spent a bit of time there a few years ago. :)
Well we are talking about a Swiss city here! They love public transport and they have tons and tons of money to build it :)
Never knew that was a metro in Lausanne, interesting and lovely video.
The smallest US city with a subway / metro is Camden, NJ. With a population of 71,700 it's part of the 14 mile (22.5 km) PATCO Speed Line between Center City Philadelphia and Lindenwold, NJ. Originally it was part of the Delaware River Bridge Line, run by PTC and briefly SEPTA between 1936 and 1968. PATCO took over in early 1969. Run by the Delaware River Port Authority (similar operation to NY and North Jersey's PATH system) Camden stops are located at City Hall, Broadway (the Walter Rand Transportation Center) and Ferry Ave. Camden is also served the NJ Transit River Line Light Rail running from the Camden Waterfront to Trenton, NJ. It's a one-zone fare. It's $1.60 each way and for seniors, children, Military or disabled 75 cents. The River Line opened in 2004 and the rolling stock is Diesel powered.
I live in the region :) Happy to see it here
Fascinating transit lines, looking forward to exploring them in April along with Zurich.
Lausanne is very busy city despite its size (Olympics Comitee, international organizations, 2 Universities and congested city centre). Also there is very little parking space even for European standards, so without this system it would be very hard to commute.
I love Lussane. I was just about too book a trip to Switzerland when this popped up
catchin strays out here in Austin, TX. sick commentary though, as always.
At some point you should really do a similar video about the Italian city of Brescia which has a Copenhagen style metro while being even smaller than Lausanne
I think you might have talked about it as part of other videos, but I'll highlight the Automated Light Metro of Brescia (196k) with 13,7 km of track, 17 stations and ~50k daily ridership. Overall, a similar situation to Lausanne, minus the mountains.
A full video on Brescia would be great! What makes such a small city so well-suited to transit?
I probably will do a full dedicated video on it in the future!
@@professorspark2361 Brescia is a quite wealthy city, the centre of a very important industrial area, so the municipality had the money (and the ambition) to invest in such a big infrastructural project, that didn't came without controversies among the population
Brescia planned to build even a line 2 (more a Western branch of the existing line, as it was designed) but that project has been abandoned. Now they're planning to build two tram lines, instead.
Anyway metro population of Brescia is bigger than Lausanne's
@@marcomontella6006 yeah but the metro population lives in separate cities often quite far away which really aren't served by the metro
I think Pittsburgh is the smallest city in the USA that has a rail transit system. But it is archaic and needs to be modernized.
During the PRR days, pittsburgh had several trolley lines that linked up with intercity trains. Now it only has 2 trolley lines and 2 intercity trains at odd hours. Faster, Modernized, and more frequent Passenger Trains (including Sleepers) to Mid atlantic and great lakes cities would help.
A city set in natural beauty of relatively compact dimensions serviced by great & frequent transit. Plus great chocolate? What’s not to like!
We agree! Especially when that transit let's you sit at the front!
Great video, didn't expect a video being made on the metro line of my small swiss town!
Loved it. Thank you!
I'm so glad you made an episode about Lausanne! I suggested it in a comment a few months ago; I wonder how much influence that had. It's an infrastructure-interesting and very beautiful city in general, so if you haven't been there yourself, I hope you get to go soon.
Wow I predicted from the title that you will be talking about Lausanne. I was there once, and for a city that size, I was surprised to see a metro! Thats why Lausanne was my first thought.
Great video. Second small town video I see on this channel.
I've been on the Lausanne metro, I absolutely love it
Crazy and beautiful!
Lyon mentioned! Merci :)
Of course! Can't talk about steep metros without it!
Can you talk about the Rennes Metro? It is the smallest city in the world to have two metro lines, with a new type of automated metro!
And I'll add that Rennes transit network is also a good example of what can be done by small/medium towns. Not just about the subway, its bus network is good too.
Rennes has also a very particular urbanism (green belt) which is rare in France.
It is not a perfect network (no one is) and it has some drawbacks, but I think it is still one of the best in France given the town's size.
I want to visit to make it!
We travelled on this a few days ago. Very clean and efficient!
Line M2 is certainly fascinating. Prior to the modernisation it featured a most unusual single-track, single-car shuttle between the two lower stations, running parallel to the main service and the second station was at a higher level to the other. Interesting that they're building a new tunnel at the lower end though... I didn't know that. Anyway, assuming I get to Geneva at some point in the near-ish future, I'll certainly travel to Lausanne just to try it out. BTW, regarding unusual systems, I'll just say: Glasgow Subway!
I take this metro everyday going to work
I wish I took an automated metro to work, but at least I can cover them in videos!
@@RMTransit thanks to your channel, you are showing what is possible around the world, even in tiny cities. So, in a sense, your work has influence (in the long term) on how many people are taking an automated metro to work.
beautiful city
I can remember when i've been to lausanne one time ( i'm a swiss person) and it was such a weird experience, if you call it metro or not it's a unique experience riding on this transport vehicle uphill!
Had to pause and add to the list of places to go at 3:09. Incredible
There’s also M3 on the way! More cities should adopt that light metro system
Very nice! You should note some of the places that M1 and M2 covers. The reason M1 has such ridership is because it connects people to two important educational institutions - EPFL (where I am at right now) and next door UNIL. UNIL itself has three stations on M1! In addition, I have friends who take the metro every day from Renens, the terminus station, into Ecublens where EPFL is located to study. M2 basically connects the important places in the city such as the lake, the university hospital (CHUV), the train station and the city center where the two metro lines meet (Lausanne-Flon).
In addition to the Lausanne Metro Line you should also cover the Réseau express régional vaudois (RER Vaud) which is a regional train station in the canton of Vaud where Lausanne is in. I take that train every couple of days to go into city center, and it’s just always an absolutely wonderful experience.
Excellent video and great public transport system.
I was there too ❤ it’s an amazing system great video
Thanks Theo :)
I suggest a video about Tyne and Wear metro. It’s also 2 lines but it has a weird shape where one of the lines passes the same station twice and it has a pretty good coverage of Tyne and Wear agglomeration with 60 stations. It is more metro-ish with just a few level crossings and fully isolated in the other parts of the track also featuring underground tunnels and cool metro bridges. It’s also interesting how despite having 12 min frequency on each line, they managed to get 3 min frequency on peak at the main shared sections with extra trains running and how they used a lot of existing infrastructure to create this system
i wish more smaller cities did this... i envy the people who live there
Meanwhile my city has 300k people and growing rapidly and not only does it have no metro, there's 45 minute headways on buses. The bus network coverage is actually really good so if headways were reduced to 15 minutes or less, then it'd be usable on a daily basis.
You should also talk about the automatic mini metro in Perugia, a cool Italian city with less than 180k inhabitants
I suspect that being automated is a significant factor in its success. With drivers, I don't think that you could afford the frequency, and lower frequency would mean lower ridership.
Yes, there is a m1 metro every 2.5 minutes at peak time. I believe it’s hard to reach these frequencies with drivers
Lausanne has about 140'000 people. But I understand that a lot of people fail to distinct between city and urban area. It would be nice to clarify when talking about city sizes though.
Finally, an actual small city and not a medium sized one like Oslo or Helsinki.
That's so weird to consider Lausanne as a "small" city for me, even considering cities that have rail transit in Europe.
You might want to know about the following situation. In Bucharest, there are 4 metro lines, built before 1989 in a dictatorship-like work regime. There is still room for expanding it, and the foremost plan was to build the 5th line across some neighbourhood with a significant population, which has a distinctive road going all around it. The other end of this line was to be on the other side of Bucharest, but they found it easier (”safe for work”) to chop the line into smaller segments that they would build one at the time (more than one at a time may have been too straining). So, they got working on the first segment of this line, which is completed as of now. The thing is, it only has one connection with the rest of the system, at one of its ends. If it was completed, it would have by itself several tens of thousands of travels per day, adn it would cross the rest of the system in multimple points, but now it only has 10k/day or less. So, there is one line which could carry 1000 people at a time, but it only carries 30 (as I witnessed), and momentarily requires to change/switch even 2 times to get to some places such as the northern zone, where many corporate buildings (with the jobs they accomodate) are. It is enough to look out for a map of the Bucharest metro to see that neither does it look like it could serve more than 10k a day.
By the way, neither is the administration preparing now to work to expand his 5th line and make it useful, because they thought that they need first to add another station to another line.
I was there a couple of times, lausanne is super steep. Like you are in your ground floor apartment and you see the 5 or more floor on the building below. Think of it of a steeper montreal.
Yep! That helps the case for metro in my eyes!
I live in Lausanne and you just forgot one thing to mention is that a "new" line will be created the M3. It's just 5 bew station but it'll likely increase a lot the ridership as it'll pass in a crowded area
How is the constructionof the M3 progressing? About 10 years ago I used to live near Morges but commute and work in Lausanne so I was familiar with most of the M1 and M2 lines
On small metros with steep grades, would be interesting to get a video about Naples with its one (or more?) metro lines, funiculars, and weird regional rail lines
I find your videos very gripping and enjoyable. thank you!!
Looking forward to seeing Moscow's metro system Explained from you
It is a very unique system with a lot of interesting features, being one of the biggest and most loaded transit systems in Europe. As for me, it is one of the best examples of a transit system based on loop lines and radius lines.
Best wishes from Moscow!
Loving the content Reece. Was wondering if you could do a vid on Brisbane's Busway network and future plans for the BRT 'Brisbane Metro'
Yes, stay tuned
Wow wow wow wow. 😯😻
This is amazing! I had no idea such a thing even existed
Amazing Metro in Lausanne. Wow. Soon there will be M3
To understand, why this metro line M2 is that successful, you should consider that not only this metro line is steep, but also the roads within the city. And most main streets go up and down the hills in a zig-zag-pattern. So going up the city in a bus took a lot of time before the opening of M2.
This line was planned as spine and lifeline of the hole public transport system. It's an integrated and through connected transport system. So, much of the bus lines now start at one of the metro M2 stations, and do not anymore the hole up-and-down to the main train station. Even by taking to different modes of transport, you will safe time, as the M2 goes straight upwards. The M2-line in Lausanne goes from 373 meters over sea level up to 711 Meter over sea level (measured in swiss reference national height network).
So the M2 means a huge saving of time, but also a huge saving in men power, or in bus kilometers. And that explains pretty much its success.
You should have a look at the village metro in Serfaus in Austria, this is not a place you would expect to find a metro line. It was recently upgraded too. This would top Lausanne easily…
You finally talked about our tiny metro :)
Thanks for this Bangkok rail system informative video 👍👍👍
But why don't you make Greater Kuala Lumpur rail integrated system video?
Miami Metro has its own issues leading to its poor ridership but I'm glad you even mentioned it. When I posted my video of it years ago the comment sections was unanimously saying "Miami has a metro? That HAS TO BE new! I didn't exist in 1984 when I was there." Ironically 84 was the year it opened lol.
The fact that it’s a tram system called ‘metro’ and on a small hilly beautiful city reminds me of the ‘metro’ in Porto
Thank you for making these videos. You should do Athens metro too. Lately, it got expanded and a 4rth line is coming up. The "1rst line" dates back to the 19th century.
nice vid. you should talk about Rennes which is even smaller and has just opened a second metro line recently
The small-ish city of Rennes in France, also with a population of around 200,000 also has two metro lines, which is quite great
There are a lot of things to take into consideration when offering a subway system expecting people to use it. It is not only a great service that will bring riders.
Based on that thumbnail (the mountains and the water) and that title, I was CONVINCED this video was about Port Moody.
Port Moody doesn't have such nice buildings!
@@RMTransit fr
I saw you Reece on CTV News talking about transit and the topic on the news was about construction in Toronto and rush hour commute times
Wow! I didn’t know there’s only 1 metro in Switzerland!
There were plans to build a metro in Zurich but it was decided to better do one urban train tunnel and a tram tunnel instead.
Well, there's the Metro Alpin in Saas Fee, but it's more a metro in name, I guess...
@@gentuxable interesting.
@@markusstudeli2997 a "metro" as people understand it, needs a city to serve and Saas-Fee is not really a city. So yeah only metro in name.
@@gentuxable the tram tunnel is very interesting because of the island platforms which requires the one-directional-trams to drive on the left because they have the doors only on the right side.
The Doha Metro should be something to talk about considering its futuristic design on its stations and trains.
It's interesting but, I have mixed feelings
I was a bit irritated in the first glance, because I wrongly understood Luzon instead of Lausanne.
It's a nice video about a small but efficient metro network.
🖐👴
The Toulouse metro is very similar, Would love to see a video on it one day.
On the point of rail naming nomenclature, at this point, I've seen enough metro/subway/light rail/etc. that fall on fringe cases (by virtue of frequency, train types, route design, etc.) that I think it's safer to just call a railway a commuter/suburban/high speed/etc. rail instead.
Thanks for the informative video as always!
P.S.: this line reminds me a bit of the Shintetsu Arima Line.
Thanks for watching, and M2 reminds me of a lot of rail lines in Japan - local rubber tire tech like Crystal mover is popular!
Great video! It would be a nice added touch if you could talk a bit about the built environment around some of the stations in these kinds of videos. As an old European city, Lausanne can undoubtedly take advantage of existing density. Would a similar transit system be as effective in a different city with a different context? Of course you can't just drop a system from one city into another.
I know you're a transit guy and not necessarily a city planning guy, but density around transit stops is an interesting and important part of any larger transit plan. I would personally love to see stuff about that in future videos when you talk about transit systems around the world.
I was there in June. Some of the M2 stops have fun audio “themes” to queue you as to which stop the car is approaching. Once the segment with single track is converted to double track, will that make Lausanne the smallest city with a true metro?
Single-track or not, 3-minute headways is a better metro than most of the world. Track doesn't define the categorization, service quality does.
If you had a single track train with 3-minute headways anywhere in the world, we'd call it both a metro and a feat of engineering and organization.
I love that! Sounds like Japan!
To be precise, the single track segment won't be converted. But a new tunnel next to it will be built, with a new station for the railway, directly under the railway station to reduce transit time. The old station will be used for a third line (M3) who will reuse a part of the m2 double track tunnel to the next station and then go to a new area of the city.