 The Delhi Metro is likely to become one of the world's most heavily used rapid transit systems in the future, and the system is already one of the world's largest rapid transit systems on various metrics, from lengths to number of stations to ridership. Unfortunately, despite its great size and the number of people it moves every single day, the Delhi Metro is woefully underappreciated. So let's try to fix that. Come along as we dive into one of the world's fastest growing metros. A special thanks to Aryan for his on-the-ground footage used in this video. I've made a lot of explainer videos, which you should check out if you haven't, but if you're new around here, before we get into looking at a mass transit system, I think it's helpful to get a lay of the land, so you can at least get a sense for why lines go where they do. It's important to note that in the case of Delhi, the city region is really multi-jurisdictional, in that Delhi and surrounding cities like Noida, Gurgaon, and Mehrut are not a single political unit, despite being deeply connected economically as part of the broader national capital region. Through the east of Delhi proper, bisecting the city is the Yamuna River. Delhi's main governmental precinct, with its angular planned roads, lies to the west of the Yamuna, while the primary CBD, if it could be called that, lies roughly to the north at Conahut Place. Further to the west-south-west is Delhi Ridge, a major forested nature preserve near the geographic center of the region. To the northeast of the CBD and governmental precinct is New Delhi Station, a major transport hub for long-distance and suburban rail services. Other major stations include Delhi Junction, Anand Vihar, and Nizamuddin. The primary airport for Delhi is IGI Indira Gandhi International, which lies to the southwest of Delhi Ridge. Now it may come as a surprise, given the topic of the video, that Delhi and more broadly India's famous mainline railways, which, much like the Delhi Metro, really are underappreciated, won't be a major topic in this video. For better or for worse, the mainline railways in Delhi need a lot of work, and hold a lot of potential that will likely be needed to be tapped into to properly serve the city as it continues to grow into one of the world's largest. That being said, the overlap between Metro and mainline rail is surprisingly small, and the existing connections are not great, likely because the Metro is seen as something new and worth focusing on as the mainline rail unfortunately falls a bit by the wayside. Speaking of the Metro though, it's no slouch on its own. The network currently has 400 kilometers of track and nearly 300 stations with more under construction, meaning Delhi Metro is already longer than almost every other Metro system in the world. The system has a total of nine lines, and it connects directly to two more that are under the jurisdiction of adjacent cities, but which to different extents have been influenced and in recent years increasingly been operated by Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, the state-owned company which runs and builds rapid transit in Delhi. Pre-COVID ridership of the system was over 5 million per day, similar to other larger systems, but probably low given the huge population of Delhi. Unfortunately the fares, which are distance-based and started around 10 cents US, still price many residents out, and this is made far worse by the de facto replacement of some previous more inexpensive transit with the rail lines. That being said, in the future it seems entirely conceivable to me that given many more lines, Delhi Metro could move more than 10 million people every single day. Keeping all of this in mind, as a decent amount of new infrastructure opens as the beginning of the COVID pandemic, with ridership beginning to recover, there's a good chance it could reach new heights in coming years. The system's reach is also being extended somewhat by a network of buses operated directly by Delhi Metro, but bad congestion and limited service seriously limits their usefulness. Now it probably comes as a surprise given the rough around the edges nature of many mainline railways in India, but Delhi Metro is really stunningly modern. From the interconnected air-conditioned trains with built-in chargers, to the large clean station facilities with fare gates and smart cars, when you're in the system it really mostly feels like any other modern metro, and in many cases miles ahead of many famous legacy metros like New York, London, and Paris, which is awesome. With the background laid out, let's take a look at the actual lines of the system, which were somewhat uniquely built in fairly well-coordinated phases, which usually created lines with similar features, construction styles, and common rolling stock. The first phase came with the initial segments of the red, yellow, and blue lines, which all use Indian mainline gauge, which is broad at 5'6", or 1676mm. The lines are all electrified with 25,000 volt AC overhead line power, which is very uncommon for metros globally, but was adopted by Delhi Metro, and thanks to the system's influence has become quite common within India. Trains are large, and the blue and yellow line trains are eight cars long, while the red line currently has six, but is moving to eight soon. At the same time, metro trains on the Delhi Metro have a higher than normal top speed of 100kmh, which helps with the long distance between many stations, many of which in a somewhat well-known Delhi fashion feature rooftop solar power arrays to generate clean energy, something that way more systems could benefit from, even if only in suburban areas. The red line was the first in the system to be built, and opened just 20 years ago in 2002. The line is a total of 35km long, with 29 stations, and broadly runs east-west. The line is virtually all overground, which is the de facto style of alignment across much of the system, typically on large concrete viaducts. That being said, somewhat uniquely, northeast of the city center, which the line doesn't really pass directly through, operations are at grade, adjacent to mainline rail tracks, something which really hasn't been done on the other lines of the system. Now, I mentioned Delhi Metro's influence on other systems in India, but it itself was heavily influenced by other systems, probably most notably Hong Kong's MTR, a great system which I do have an explainer on, and which was hired as a consultant on the Delhi Metro project, the influence of which is definitely noticeable, including the original Phase 1 rolling stock that bears a lot of resemblance to MTR's K trains built by Rotoman Mitsubishi, and with whom Delhi has worked on along with local manufacturers on several subsequent train orbits. That being said, Delhi doesn't use the 5 doors per car standard seen in Hong Kong. The yellow line is an arc opening west, and is 49km long with 37 stations, connecting to the red line at Kashmir Gate, which is also a major interstate bus terminal or ISBT. These exist at a number of locations across Delhi, and provide bus services to other states. Just to the south, there's also a station not far from Delhi Junction Station, as well as a connection to Delhi Station near the city center. The alignment of the line is elevated north of the center, then underground from the core to some distance to the south, before merging back above ground into an elevated guideway. The blue line is an east-west arc that opens to the south, and is the longest in the system at 65km with 57 stations, which puts it up with some of the longest single metro lines in the world. Like with the yellow line, the line is underground within the core where it connects with the yellow line at Central Park, creating an odd topology where the yellow line is connected to both the red and blue lines, but the red and blue lines are not directly connected to one another. Unlike the yellow line, the blue line pops above ground almost immediately after leaving the center on both sides. To the east, the blue line splits, with a short branch to the north, and a longer southern branch that ends with an array of elevated tail tracks that sort of reminds me of Chicago. For the second phase of construction, three new lines, the green, violet, and orange, were added, and while these lines like earlier ones did opt for 25,000v AC overhead power, they moved to standard rather than broad gauge track. Trains were also a little narrower than in phase 1, and stations were built to be shorter. The green line is super weird and fairly substantial at nearly 30km long with 24 stations, and it travels very far from Central Delhi. This is mainly because the line terminates quite far west of the center, with two reverse branches, one ending at the red line and another at the blue. A very unusual design for a metro service, and something made even more strange by the lack of a flyover between the branches. The line, as you may expect, is entirely elevated. The violet line is more of a conventional north-south line, again with six-car trains, which starts at the interchange of the yellow and red lines, the major hub of Kashmir Gate, and runs south through the core, with an interchange with the blue line, east of Central Park, as it then swings west to Central Secretariat where it connects again with the yellow line. The line travels underground all the way to south of Jalan Stadium, towards the south of the core, before going elevated again traveling east, and then south all the way to its terminus, arguably the furthest away from Central Delhi. The questionable integration between mainline rail and metro seen across the system is quite apparent at the southern terminus, which is connected to mainline rail, but via a 300m covered walkway, something that reminds me very much of a recent video. The orange line is the first Delhi metro line that really diverges from the traditional metro model, in that it operates as a relatively high speed airport express with a top speed of 130km per hour. The line is 23km long, with a total of six stations, and runs southwest from New Delhi station, where it connects to the yellow line and mainline trains, then to IGI airport, and then beyond to the terminus of the blue line. The portions around the airport and Central Delhi are underground, while the rest of the line, including parts of it through Delhi Ridge, are elevated. The line was one of MTR's most direct influences on the Delhi Metro. The company directly consulted on the project, and it has a number of similar elements to Hong Kong's airport express service, including in-town check-in and platform screen doors at all stations, as well as even calf rolling stock. Unfortunately though, while the orange line or airport express as it's known does serve the main airport terminal area, it doesn't serve the newer IGI terminal one used by low cost carriers. It's also somewhat different from the Hong Kong airport express, and may be a bit more like Taipei's in that it extends beyond the airport to other areas of the city. The Magenta line is 37km long with 25 stations, in an east-west arc opening north, and starts to show the limits of the color-based line naming. I mean magenta, really? Though it's worth mentioning that Delhi's lines do have numbers as well. When the line opened, it was the first automated metro line in India, and the line pops above and below ground frequently along its alignment, and terminates at the blue line at both ends, with connections in between to the violet and yellow lines. The Magenta line also serves IGI airport, albeit terminal one rather than the main terminal area, though a people mover or other similar connection would be a great addition in the future to connect to the main terminal area. The pink line is sort of the penultimate line on the Delhi metro, in my personal opinion. It forms an almost complete loop around the city, currently being an arc opening north, and is 59km long with 38 stations, making it the longest line in the system if you don't count the blue line branch as part of its length. Along the route, the pink line connects to all earlier Delhi metro lines, including three times to the blue line, one of which is at Anand Vihar mainline rail station, and two times to the red and yellow lines. There was initially one missed connection with the green line, but this has been rectified with a new infill station, which is a pretty decent transfer. The pink line also goes to Sarai Kale Khan, a major interstate bus terminal that's also going to be a major feature hub for the under construction regional rapid transit system, which I have a dedicated video on, as well as connecting to another major mainline rail station. Unfortunately though, not all of the connections are good, and this is a broader problem with the Delhi metro. Connections within phases tend to be fairly good, but between phases can be incredibly rough. The connection from the pink line to the airport express is over a kilometer long for example, which is just bad, even if it is enclosed and has an incredible number of travelators. Seriously, I'm pretty sure it's a world record holder here. Most transfers on the system are a lot better than this, but given the pre-planned nature of the system and how good it generally is, I would have liked to see cross-platform transfers in a lot of places, which should be doable given that most of the system is elevated. Now fortunately, much of the pink line has a really smooth alignment, but that goes out the door east of the river, where the alignment swerves all over the place, and this is in part due to land acquisition issues that have been a recurring problem for the Delhi metro, which also forced the pink line to initially open as two separate segments. They've also forced some crazy depots, including this multi-level split depot on the pink line, this super stretched out depot on the green line, and one which is on an elevated deck with a park and ride underneath on the magenta line, as well as this depot across the river from the blue line. The grey line is the shortest on the system, with just four stations over five kilometers, spurring off to the west of the western end of the blue line, and using space on the aforementioned blue line depot site for train storage and maintenance. There are also two additional metro lines which are in states adjacent to Delhi, but which function as part of the Delhi metro system, with connections to it and operations managed by DMRC. The first of these is Noida Metro's Aqua Line, which even has a colored name, and is 30 kilometers long with 21 stations, connected to Delhi Metro via the southern branch of the blue line, albeit with another very long walkway that at least is well fitted out and weather protected. The line uses 25,000 volt AC power and standard gauge, as with most newer Delhi Metro lines, and is entirely elevated. While the line currently doesn't get huge ridership, it has provision for much more frequency, longer trains and extensions on both ends, and many areas it runs through remind me of South Korea, with forests of high-rise residential towers, though other parts travel to mostly undeveloped land. The second non-Deli Metro metro line in the national capital region is the Rapid Metro Gurgao, which is a 13 kilometer 11 station light metro line connected to the Delhi Metro via the far southern end of the yellow line. Like the Noida Aqua Line, the Rapid Metro is fully elevated, but unlike it and every other metro line in Delhi, it's powered by 750 volt DC third rail, and features a unidirectional loop through a major business development area at its northern end. As it turns out, with both the airport Express and the Rapid Metro Gurgao, private companies initially built the systems, but then failed to be able to continue operating them and they were taken over by government entities. All of this leaves us with the national capital region's greater metro network as of late 2022, but things are set to continue to grow in a big way. The Magenta line will be extended to the northeast and then self to form an almost complete loop, while the Pink Line will become a fully closed loop, albeit with an offshoot like many other looping metro lines such as London Circle Line. A new line is also already being built known as the Silver Line that will cut across southern Delhi and connect to the airport express at Delhi Aero City. Beyond this, there will also be an extension of the red line, two new lines known as the Brown and Indigo lines, and a couple of other projects in the works. Now overall, most of my comments on the Delhi Metro, besides the connections between some lines, are quite positive, but one feature that does concern me a little is the tendency to create entirely separate suburban metro lines. This is being rectified somewhat with the RRTS system, but it's still concerning to see the Mexico City Metro style of development, where traveling to the suburbs requires getting on an entirely separate suburban metro line, as is required with the Green Line, the Grey Line, the Norda Metro, and the Rapid Metro Gurgaon. With that said, given the Delhi Metro's impressive scale and large ridership, it's been quite influential. I mentioned how much of the system is elevated, and surely it's no coincidence that many other, more recently constructed metro systems across India and other parts of South and Southeast Asia have frequently used similar elevated guideways to build out their systems. This influence from the Delhi Metro has actually been formalized, and now DMRC consults for other cities, particularly in India, on creating their own metro systems. Of course, I hope you've also gotten an appreciation from this video for just how modern Delhi Metro is. This is an advantage the system has over a lot of other famous metros around the world, with universal accessibility, level and mostly straight platforms, and large trains basically standard across the system, not to mention air conditioning, smart card payment, modern signaling, many stations with pretty good integrated transit oriented development, as well as the aforementioned solar power. When you step onto the Delhi Metro, in many ways, it doesn't feel all that different from an iconic system like the MTR, and that's a big achievement. Delhi Metro also has pretty good wayfinding, which is in multiple languages, like a lot of systems in Asia, which is something else I think systems around the world could learn from to make world cities more accessible. Despite these sometimes bad transfers, the maps also do a good job of showing you which transfers are particularly long, so you can at least try to avoid them. All in all, the Delhi Metro is one of the world's great metro systems, and given it's only had 20 years to get there, the future looks bright. Thanks for watching.