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I went on the Shanghai metro in 2015, and I was astounded. The network was so vast and deep down, you could take journeys of escalators going down or up, especially in an interchange station. Thousands would be on their phones because wifi was already widespread underground. Everything was so seemless and in order, and was very cheap. I went back to the Toronto TTC subway line, and I couldn't help myself but chuckle everytime I got into one of those trains.

I rode the Shanghai metro last week and it was fucking awesome. super clean, cheap, easy to navigate, and had consistently fast service. literally no negative experiences with it

In New York, you just want to get in and get out when you arrived your destination as soon as possible. To get away from the smell and stay safe. In China, you actually want to spend time in the subway area, like a mini mall. Where there is small shops and many things to see.

I use the Shanghai subway everyday to go to work and it’s the best subway system I have used in my life compare with other countries, it’s fast, cheap, clean and safe, it’s just an amazing system.

I am living in China at the moment and I still get nerdily excited about the metro system here in Qingdao. It's a very new transport network and new lines opening practically every year. Having grown up in Northern Ireland which has a grand total of three railway lines for the whole province and no local bus services after 9 pm, I will never take the infrastructure here for granted. Ok some hungover mornings on the way to work I do get annoyed when I have just missed a train and have to wait a whole 6 minutes for the next one. Then I remember my old commute to and from Belfast when the train would arrive 10 minutes after the bus to my hometown had already left and it was a 45 minute wait for the next bus. And then I laugh.

I was in Shanghai for a business trip twice so far and their metro is awesome. Yes, it is clean, yes it is punctual and as someone who can't read Chinese - you will easily find out where you are and where you need to go. It is also easy to use (you have a card that is charged with money and you pay for ride semi-automatically).

Used it from its begining until 2019. Fantastic is the word I use to describe it. Best I have been on including many newer systems HK, Singapore, Bangkok, Tokyo etc. Beijing's is as well as many others in China also very good. What makes their systems even better is that they connect up seamlessly with all the other transport systems be it long distance rail 3 main stations, the two airports or the long distance bus stations. Same in Beijing and Guangzhou, etc

I grew up in Shanghai, and as a kid and therefore being shorter than everyone, I was constantly frustrated about the crowds in the Shanghai subway that I loathed taking it for a while. After going to college in NYC and experiencing the old, cranky, and dark NYC metro, coming back to Shanghai and taking its subway felt like a luxury - I would take it whenever I can. The city government has promised that there will be a subway station within 1km’s walk, and as I am typing up this comment, line 21 is being constructed and a station is being built in front of my apartment - watching the construction progress is really astounding, for you could see significant progress being made every week.

I've travelled on the Maglev and Subway run to Hongqaio airport to then get on the high speed train to Nanjing and it was a fascinating and spectacular journey, and totally agree it was super easy to navigate as an Australian who can't read or understand Chinese characters/Mandarin language, at no point did I feel lost, very cool experience 😊😊

I used metros in a few Chinese cities: Shanghai, Chengdu, Shenzhen, Foshan and Guangzhou ... Amazingly reliable and clean and reasonably priced. Shenzhen had an interesting feature: different lines on the same level for easy connection.

As Deng Xiaoping, a Chinese leader once said 'it doesn't matter if the cat is black or white as long as it catches the mice'. Chinese r very pragmatic people, they don't care what system or name u give it as long as it achieves results which give them better, safety and stability in life. In fact, they absolutely abhor the Western style in which everyone is divided into different groups/parties all fighting each other wasting time, resources and energy, nothing ever gets done. Worse the country practically goes into a civil war every few years when the elites go in for a power grab. The winner is usually the one with the most money and able to use the fake news and lies media to brainwash the population with their propaganda to vote for them.

Shanghai metro line 11 just connected last month, June 2023 to the neighboring Suzhou metro line 11. You can now travel seamlessly between the 2 giant cities. Tim Chambers on KZfaq has some videos on it and all the other china railroads for any enthusiasts. More lines between Shanghai and Suzhou are in the works. Suzhou is about 8 million people or so. Rm transit channel helps break down why the systems can be built so quickly.

As a Houstonian, the scale comparison made me laugh. We have a three line above ground light rail in our downtown that’s 20 years old. I can’t imagine a subway.

I rode the Maglev from Shanghai Airport to downtown and someone asked why there were no seatbelts. 430 Kmh was smooth and looked quick.

I lived in Shanghai from 2014 to 2018. My apartment was on line 2. I would go to City center every weekend and on the other end of Line 2 was the airport. Before i left they added the line to Disney Shanghai. There was a new line (15 or 12 i think) that brought to strawberry fields near Shanghai

Every underground system in the world makes the New York system look like you're going back in time

I love how the word 'authoritarian' just had to make an appearance in this video, as if western countries aren't authoritarian in certain aspects.

It was supposed to be a technical video discussing the subway system, but the vlogger didn't forget to mention the "dictatorship" government at the end. It doesn't really matter whether the Chinese government is a dictatorship or an authoritarian government. The dictatorship's massive investment in public infrastructure has allowed the Chinese people to enjoy convenient, cheap, and efficient commuting. As a Chinese, there is really nothing to complain about.

When I first arrived in Shanghai, I took the Maglev to the connecting subway station and it only took around 8 minutes. When I left Shanghai, we took the bus and it took an hour and a half.

If you want to see subway trains and stations, then I would highly recommend their other cities in Shenzen, Xi'an, and Guangzhou. Best modern subways you'll ever find for the next 10 years!

Meanwhile in Toronto, Canada we're struggling to open a 19 km, 25 stop Eglinton LRT line that was started in 2011 and is at least 3 years past its original projected opening date of 2020 and is at least 2 billion overbudget and is scheduled to possibly be ready by 2024. Also Toronto's next subway line named Ontario Line started construction in 2023 and is expected to finish by 2031 to build a 15 station, 16km subway line that's expected to cost between 17-19 billion dollars. Its sad to see how quickly the Chinese have learned to build such good quality public projects that can be completed in a relatively short amount of time while in Canada it can take many years if not decades just to get anything out of the planning phase and then many more years to get a project completed usually over the estimated completion date and over budget.

Simon, i just watched a documentary on how they raised the Kursk. It was an amazing feat of engineering. Thought a condensed version would be a great idea for this channel. 🤘

In Amsterdam we recently built the Noord-Zuidlijn (North-Southline). It took 16 years to build a 10KM line with just 8 stops. There must be a lesson here.

I’ve travelled on the Shanghai maglev and China’s high speed rail system. It is world class! The American system in NYC is decrepit The London one is slightly better, but dystopian looking. The ‘authoritarian’ government, as the West LOVES to describe China’s CPC is very effective and made up of intelligent and highly educated political leaders. My country’s government (Singapore), has been described by the West, especially the Anglophone countries, like the UK, the U.S. and Australia as being ‘authoritarian lite’. We Singaporeans, like the mainland Chinese people, love our respective ‘authoritarian lite’ and ‘authoritarian’ governments. Singaporeans look at the UK’s and the U.S.’s dysfunctional versions of so-called ‘democracy’ and we say - thanks, but hell…NO THANKS. 😂 America’s version of democracy produces immoral clowns like Trump, gaffe prone Biden or morons like GW Bush. The West (Five Eyes nations France and Germany) are hell bent on shoving their toxic and dysfunctional government systems down the throats of countries they deem ‘undemocratic’. China’s communist-socialist government’s success at adopting capitalism probably drives Western democracies (like the US and UK) crazy. 😂 Moral of the story - there are NO ‘perfect’ political systems or type of governments in the world. There are simply different political systems that work well for each country, whether we think it’s right for them or not, is irrelevant. Non interference, non intervention and respect for each nation’s sovereignty is the best approach.

Well I can see you have done a lot research and work to compare the difference between Shanghai and NY subways. Thank you I love taking subways in China. It's quick and convenient plus cheap.

My father is a 'dictator' in some ways but he takes care of all the problems and provides a better life for the family. He guides and teaches us how to be a good person. He sacrifice a lot of his life for the family. We love and won't change for any other ' Liberal father' . We feel safe and sound and know our family are in good hands.

It is amazing how much you can achieve when you don’t have to drop bomb in other countries 😅

So refreshing to see a western video that doesn't disparage China and shows how they have progressed on so many fronts in such short time. Thank you for this ❤

1:00 - Chapter 1 - The timeline 2:40 - Mid roll ads 4:05 - Back to the video 6:45 - Chapter 2 - Methods 9:15 - Chapter 3 - The maglev line 12:05 - Chapter 4 - Conclusion

If China has one thing going for it, it's completing enormous complex projects at insanely fast speeds

Theres a subway station in nyc called canal st. One of the stairs leads down to one of the platforms and if you slipped while going down the stairs, you will hit a small metal barrier that stands between you and getting run over by a train. This efficient and simple barrier is an engineering achievement.

I just watched a few hour video on the The Supercollider that the US tried to build in Texas... the thing was supposed to be a giant loop of about 55 miles with magnets, in 20 years about 2 billion was spent and 14 miles of tunneling completed. The drama of getting this thing build was just so absurd it truly amazes me that we finish anything at all. Should have contracted the whole thing out to China.... would have had it done in a year

I'm currently in Shanghai near the Jing'an Temple metro stop. The subway is much better and more modern than in the west. There are partial or full walls between the platform and subway trains which really helps with preventing injuries / suicides etc. There isn't any trash around the metro and the city at large is extremely clean. The people and police are very friendly if you need help with directions etc. Almost all the sign are in dual mandarin and english so it's fairly easy to navigate the city. Also of note, if you can, get the shanghai subway card for iphones for convenience. One other observation: there are police stop points at every entrance to the metro ( they check the rider's bags and have airport style machines to scan them ) idk why.

First operation on 1993 and now is 803 KM is insane.. Until you find out Chengdu Metro which started operation only 2010 with 15 km and now is over 500 KM

Phenomenal to finish a project like this in such a time frame!

I am from Shanghai and I remembered when the Maglev was built there were proposals to build a maglev from Shanghai to Beijing. This was canned due to exorbitant cost. They then proposed a Maglev line between Shanghai and Hangzhou, connecting a few other cities along the way. This almost went ahead as Shanghai government at the time was run by Chen Liangyu (who was purged in a power struggle years later against President Hu) who was famous for mega projects in Shanghai. However the project met resistance from local residents along the route as they feared the magnetic field radiation would cause harm and was eventually dropped. The remaining Maglev line to the airport remains a white elephant project that bleeds money till this day. The prices of the maglev ticket barely changed in 20 years reflecting how insignificant the ticket sales are compared to the running cost of this line.

What's funny is that the $1 billion price tag for the 30 km maglev in Shanghai is actually cheap compared with the now $100B projected cost for the existing California high speed rail.

"If they didn't want to be made fun of, they wouldn't have made it this easy" 😂

about a decade ago, I went to Guangzhou, and I was surprised at how modern the subway, and how cheap the ticket was, almost made me feel like I rode it for free, LOL.

Great video! One of the many reasons I love China ❤ I visited London once. On the very first tube ride from the airport, my train got stuck for 30 minutes. Other than that London was fun.

The train stations are unbelievable too

As a Shanghainese born and bred. I lived through the rise of the Shanghai metro. Still remember first riding line 1 back in 1994. Shanghai metro is top notch

It’s hard to find anything dealing with public transport/transportation in the US that does not look primitive or lacking maintenance. Moving material included.

We could use this kind of gumption in Toronto. Our Eglinton Line has taken 12 years for 19 km and we're not done yet.

It doesn't have to try very damned hard. I wouldn't be surprised if the MTA has a maintenance backlog older than the Shanghai subway.

It's not just Shanghai but Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Chongqing, Wuhan, Harbin, Xian and dozens of other major cities in China. The official policy was to build a metro for every city with more than 1.5 million people, now scaled back to 3 million but there are still dozens of those.

I have used both the Moscow & Leningrad (St. Petersburg) subways. Both were magnificent.

12:10 "Say what you will about **insert authoritarian here** but they did make the trains run on time." 😳

An update, the Shanghai Maglev is limited to 300km/h top speed currently in an effort to save energy. It's still cool but the CHR trains often exceed this speed.

"Because we're British and as with many things, we did it first and now we're sh*t at it." I love Simon's quips.

I like how on the NYC subway, you can tell that the system is 120 years old and was partially refurbished 40-50 years ago. You can really taste the history... literally. I bet it was magnificent, too... 120 years ago. 😕

Guangzhou metro is driverless and runs at 160 km/h

As a rolling stock engineer (retired) I was involved in the supply and refurbishment of metro rolling stock to Hong Kong, Shanghai, Shenzen, Guangzhou . China saw how the HK MTRC and KCRC served the populace of Hong Kong/ Kowloon and the New Territories. The big city mayors all wanted this for their cities. The largest world metro suppliers all created Joint Ventures in China to manufacture type A metros - 23 Metre cars 3+ Metres wide. At that time I was working for Adtranz/Bombardier having just left Metro-Cammell/Alstom . We even airlifted the first unit to Guanzhou to avoid being late! Oh by the way Birmingham Airport had the first MagLev shuttle, albeit a bit slower than either Shanghai or the experimental Japanese unit.

Shanghai is an amazing city. I went there a few years ago and want to re visit.

The New York subway is 120 years old. I’m guessing that’s probably why.

China is already testing their 600 kmh high speed rail. They could be in operation maybe 5 years from now from what I've heard. That will be incredible because it will link major metropolitans and make traveling within an area of 600Km diameter seem like a inner city travel. Think of the economic benefits and productivity gain China could reap.

The maglev in shanghai cost just £3.50. Thinking about the price of the Gatwick to London centre its ridiculous.

I spent a lot of my time in Shanghai, October 2019, exploring Shanghai via its subway system. It is amazing. I'd hesitate to say it is better than the grand daddy, London, because so many of the destinations are very new. It's worth riding the system after 8PM - you get to see the 996ers grabbing food and drinks on the go, as they to their beds.

The word primitive made me laugh. I like how you are nice and respectful

In the meantime a 20 km.line In Toronto, Canada is still not finished 12 years later....

In Toronto, ON, Canada; it takes 5 years just to build a goddamn subway station. Another 5 years for less than 5 km light rail tracks. Things go at such a snail pace and waste of taxpayer's money.

I visited Shanghai in 1987. Buses & bicycles were very common with private cars being very rare. A few years ago I watched a film shot in contemporary Shanghai. I leaned over to my girl friend & told her how that was not the Shanghai that I had visited…..

Been on it a few times. The difference between this and Beijing's subway, for example, is that fellow passengers in Shanghai don't like people talking loudly to each other or on their mobile phones. It's a cultural thing between Shanghai (seen as a bit snobbish by other Chinese folk) and the rest of China.

Next video show how spectacular is each station, that will truly make NY's look PRIMITIVE!

a lot of subway systems make new york's look primitive

I’m currently studying in Germany, a country quite satisfied with its signs. One thing i couldn’t help noticing, is that all over germany, the signs are always hidden to make the station more aesthetically pleasing, rather than functional. In Shanghai, in every single station, no matter which elevator, which entrance, how many people are packed in the station, you can always look up and find all possible info you would ever need. It is hard to get lost as long as you know your final destination. I never took wrong direction even if first time in a new station, and i never needed to stop to find out the right entrance and blocking people behind. In Germany, most stations do a poor job of showing all info at clear sight. You may get the wrong direction all the time repeatedly due to its lack of information at the right places. Yes you can always find extremely detailed plans in the corner, but it makes no sense.

I visited Shanghai in October 2010 and was impressed with their system. I wish China could take over the U.S. for a few years and build a public transport system for us.

The problem is that NYC is full of bureaucratic red tape in getting ANY work done. Then there's the NYC Transit/ MTA fighting with itself in getting repairs and upgrades done all while trying to keep service running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Not to mention that all this infrastructure is over 110 years old and thanks to over development of every borough, doing any kind of major work requires the closure of major roads and sidewalks which causing people to complain some more. I remember when they shut the NYC subway down over night during COVID and people were up in arms about it, but thanks to COVID rules in place getting work done with the stupid CDC regulations was still an issue. Then there's the riding public with a subset of people who either don't pay their fare or go on to destroy trains, buses and stations. A brand new subway rolled off the lot a month ago and within a few weeks was defaced when I boarded the train.

I lived and worked in Shanghai around 2019 and I have to say that the metro system and generally speaking transportation infrastructure in China is second to none. It's absolutely insane how convenient and advanced China is compared to the US and Europe when it comes to these things. Walking around Paris subway tunnels makes you feel you moved a hundred years back in time 😂

Man, that intro is so badass. Please never change it

After having just visited paris I can at least say one good thing about the london underground: it has infinitely more escalators and elevators than the paris metro and train lines. Any leg injury or disability and you're just shit out of luck

Very few can report unbiased trueful reports on China's great development; worthy to watch and appreciate it.

"We're just like British Rail, love. We may be late, but we get you there." - Die Hard 2

I will never take the New York Subway system, I don't wanna get murdered.

SH subway is absolutely fantastic. I was in SH for 7 days in May. I used the subway every single day including some long journeys with 1 hour on a single trip. And the fare for the entire week costs just under a cup of iced Latte from Costa in SH.

To be fair anything built century ago and then rest added on in the next 50 years or so and then left to rot with minimal repairs/upgrades probably isnt great compared to todays standards...

New York Subway doesn't look primitive. It simply is primitive.

I went on the Northern Line in London it was deafening and no air con but open windows with soot entering into the carriage which nearly suffocates you,like you're in a Coal Mine!

The Russian subway looks like a museum. 😍 China subway looks futuristic.

Maintenance going into the future is going to be a wild expense for all of the infrastructure.

The NYC Subway is filthy, scary and not a good place to be. If you ask any female in the Subway a simple question, they act like you have attacked them. I have never felt this degree of paranoia in any other subway in the world. The subway in Thailand is clean, safe and modern.

In the city I live in Canada, it took 3 years just to repair an old bridge. Man holes are popping up so high and can scrape your muffler aquifer you are not careful. The roads are so bad that you I feel like riding a boat when I was driving through it. I love my country and city, but we have to accept the fact that we have lousy people that build the roads. Never mind about tunnels!

I somehow still feel underwhelmed. I believe this presentation would have been better if it had more effectively shown the SIZE/SCALE of this network, as well as shown us more imagery/video from inside the system. I This would give the viewer a richer visual understanding and appreciation. But I suppose you're limited to using stock images/videos so it may not be viable? I enjoy your channels.

You should say China's subway stations and high-speed rail system. not only shanghai

The one of the busiest Metro line in the world is Budapest line 3 (blue line). Its average daily performance is 600 000 passanger. This number was reached in late of 80’s. Since then, the daily number of passangers fluctuated around this. If somebody show up a line that exceeds this passangers’ number consider the following. Budapest reached its highest population in the 80’s with 2.1 million inhabitants. Now it is just 1.7 million. The line 3 has 20 stations. On the line 2 the daily passangers are above 450 000. On line 4 is above 200 000 with 10 stations. On the ‘museum’ line 1 has max 35 000 passangers/day with 11 stations (it opened in 1896).

NATM was also used on the British side of the Eurotunnel. So how can you not know it? ;-) In general it's being used in (at least) sections of a large number of tunnels (at one point I heard over 50%, but not sure if true). It was initiated by the same person who founded the scientific society "ISRM" which has been conducting resarch into various engineering topics for decades. And also has many Chinese members. (There were two co-inventors. All 3 Austrian engineers who brought their knowledge together.) There are a few such societies. It might make sense to try to contact them in order to get some contacts who may be willing to help clarify engineering questions. They also have a number of online resources into contemporary science and engineering.

Awesome video but just FYI, you completely butchered the explanation of tunnelling methods. Excavation using a "boring machine" is called TBM tunnelling which is the "production line approach" you refer to and is used for most of the metro tunnels. New Austrian Tunnel Method (NATM) is when they mine with traditional excavators and support the ground with shotcrete and bolts, this one is mostly used for shorter but larger section tunnel caverns like for stations and adits.

And the HUGE rats in the New York Subway. Can eat you alive

Whoever wrote the Methods section needs to do more research. Automated construction and TBMs typically use precast concrete forms that make up a cylinder. Rebar and shotcrete is used in more manual excavation that you might use for a station cavern for example.

Let's be fair. Everything makes the NY Metro look primitive

0:16 Correction for your description. China is not a communist country in every sense of the word and from any angle you look at it. It's only ruled by a Communist Party that has abandoned communist ideologies long ago. So, it's just in name. 😂

Love your videos! Thanks for the effort and it is very informative. Speaking of China’s system, 😂I don’t really care what other people call our government, but I love it. I feel free, safe and I can do whatever I want in China and never felt restricted, of course I am a law abiding citizen. ( born, raised in China and lived there for 27 years and been living in Australia since, so I consider myself in a good position to say something about both China and the west. China just like any Western countries, is not perfect, but we Chinese love the way of it. ) ✌️peace ✌️

So the cost per ride in Shanghai is $0.30. In New York it is $2.75 while The British in London charges $7.40. The cost ratio between Shanghai:New York:London is 1 : 9.16 : 24.66 Since this video New York subway ticket has risen to $2.90 from $2.75.

NYC has built about 5 or 6 new stations in my entire life. I am 72.

I'm a bit baffled by the explanation about the tunneling method... If it was a tunnel boring machine it used tunnel segments and not shotcrete. If it used meshing and shotcrete, it was excavation equipment and not a TBM. Thry may have used both depending on the segments being dug but the explanation is confusing. The New Austrian Tunneling Method (NATM) dates back to the late 50's / mid 60's. It is a sequential excavation with excavation equipment and shotcrete on meshs to line the walls. It does not use tunnel boring machines and requires a rocky ground that can support itself while being dug. It can work in soft grounds as long as they have enough support. I thought Shanghai had more of a marshy ground, which is not suitable for NATM. That's earth / mud pressure balance TBM territory. But they may have a variety of rocky, soft and marshy ground depending on the location and depth. The speed at which they built the Shanghai subway is impressive, and certainly based on the fine subdivision and parallelism of tasks, not the tunneling method itself. They probably had at least one tunneling team between each station and not simply one or more teams sequentially digging the tunnel over the length of multiple stations. Having 200 excavation and tunneling teams building 200 shorter bits of tunnels is much faster than 20 teams building ten times longer tunnel stretches. To give an idea, Paris had more than 20 TBM's digging simultaneously through its underground for the first phase of the Grand Paris Express expansion project. Each only dug between 2 and 4 kilometers on average to speed up the process, instead of fewer TBM's digging much longer. Right now, nearly 100 kilometers have been dug, 24 TBM's have finished working and 5 TBM's are still digging. There will be another wave of digging with two dozen TBM's soon, mainly for the East and West sections of the huge circular line M15 (the South section is already dug and in the finishing and equipment stage). It still takes about 12 or 13 years to build 200 kilometers of new metro lines. So, Shanghai must have maximized parallelism to a level never seen before by massively multiplying the number of digging teams and equipment. Each one only being in charge of a very small fraction of the network. Plus extreme project management.

i was so shocked at how expensive the London Tube was. No kidding. WTF? It feels like being stabbed. The subway fare in these chinese metro systems are what it should be. i hope it is as convinient to travel in every cornor of the world.

This maglev line was totally a test track, to see if they could find a way to build it "chinese way", for a much cheaper cost. That's how they managed to build such a giant HSR network in such short time, same for the metro. China is known for being great at copying and mass-producing, and such infrastructure projects are perfect for that : no expensive research, and much cheaper than what we build. Also, expropriation is much easier when everyone fears the government. This is seriously impressive, how they managed to build the largest networks on the planet in such short time is just amazing. I wish other countries would follow their lead and learn from their techniques.

China invested lots in infrastructure. US invested lots in weapons and bases in diff countries.

The linear induction motor, the basis of maglev trains, was invented by Professor Eric Laithwaite of Imperial College, London.