Less Waiting for the Metro

In order to better serve residents of and visitors to Tbilisi, the intervals between subway trains in Tbilisi will be reduced to three minutes starting September 15, said Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze at a meeting of the city government today.

For now, the interval between trains varies from 3 to 5 minutes in the daytime, and from 8 to 10 minutes in the evening.

"It will be possible to shorten the waiting period, especially during rush hour, from September 15. Passengers usually wait 4-5 minutes during peak times, however, due to changes and modernization, this time can be reduced to 3 minutes," Kaladze said.

This year, city authorities have added four new metro structures and eliminated malfunctions on certain sections of the rails, which affected the travel time of trains. In addition, a new team of machinists was added.

"Of course, we should not be content with this result, we continue to work in a better direction, we want to add new cars and modernize the metro in such a way as to shorten the waiting time in the future to 2 minutes," Kaladze stated.

The development of the subway is an important part of the transport policy of Tbilisi City Hall. In 2019-2021, the city authorities plan to add 12 more cars to the subway lines. The Tbilisi metro serves approximately 290,000 passengers a day. In the public transport system of Tbilisi, passenger traffic on the subway takes third place, after marshrutkas (minibuses) and buses.

By Shawn Wayne