MILANO | Public Transport

[GENIUS LOCI]

This station, S. Agostino on M2, is the first station in Milan which superimposes the two platforms.
Opened in 1983 this typology of station was used to make the metro tunnel run under relatively narrow streets instead of underpassing the building basements. To reduce the wideness of the tunnel the two rails run into superimposed pipes (actually it's just one pipe separated by a slab)


http://www.sottomilano.it/fermate/sagostino.htm

This technique was also used in following years to build the central stretch of M3 which has 5 stations of that kind, Turati, Montenapoleone, Duomo, Missori, Crocetta.

M3 Duomo station
[IMG]http://i54.************/4jm7gy.jpg[/IMG]

[GENIUS LOCI]

A gif map of Milan metro web evolution till 2005 (it lacks of the last opened extensions)



http://www.cityrailways.it/milano-metro-storia/

[thun]

I thought that some part from Caiazzo to the North East on the Green Line was the first segment of the Metro which went into service (at least the German Wikipedia says so)?!?

[GENIUS LOCI]

I don't speak German but for what I understand the infos reported are in accordance with the map http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitana_di_Milano

[thun]

Apparently I just remembered it wrong...

[GENIUS LOCI]

I up this thread by saying since September the fare for a single ride ticket will rise from 1€ to 1.5€

[Attus]

Originally Posted by GENIUS LOCI

I up this thread by saying since September the fare for a single ride ticket will rise from 1€ to 1.5€

Really? +50% ?

[Suburbanist]

Originally Posted by GENIUS LOCI

I up this thread by saying since September the fare for a single ride ticket will rise from 1€ to 1.5€

Thank God, the €1 fare was unsustainable in times of lean budgets for Milano municipality. ATM had a farebox recovery rate of less than 25%.

But they need to steeply increase the prices of monthly subscriptions. They should cost at least € 100.

[GENIUS LOCI]

€ 100 doesn't make any sense.

It should way more convenient, for istance, to buy single tickets. With two journeys a day (including Saturdays and Sundays) you'd pay about 90 € a month

[thun]

Above all they should improve customer service. The way they sell you those magnetic cards is just pathetic. I had to wait over a month for it, everywhere else they are able to do it within 2 minutes.

[GENIUS LOCI]

Originally Posted by thun

Above all they should improve customer service. The way they sell you those magnetic cards is just pathetic. I had to wait over a month for it, everywhere else they are able to do it within 2 minutes.

Yup.

They're concerned of different people using the same card, so they fear to sell less subscriptions or tickets.
But people who buy subscriptions use the PT every day, then they actually use their cards.

There is another thing I don't like. With the cards you can buy just 'season' tickets (weekly, monthly, annual subscriptions).
You can't just recharge your card puttin' the money on and spending it gradually as, for istance, London Oyster does.
Probably that's due to the fact that nowadays the system is 'open'; I mean you have to validate the ticket once you in but not a second time once you get out (like London system does), so you've to know in advance what's the fare of your trip.
The magnetic system in Milan is predisposed to work in London's way though (it doesn't yet because they've to upgrade all S lines railways stations that way, and, unlike the metro stations, they're taking it too easy) so I hope in the future to let an Oyster-like rechargeable system

[thun]

The main advantage of the Oyster Card are the massive discounts it gives to occasional riders. In Milan where day passes are ridiculously cheap they wouldn't really make sense imo. The only people which could take advantage out such a system in fact are Milanese which ride public transports only occasionally and less than three times a day as it would be a little bit more comfortable for them.

Nevertheless you could implement such an e-wallet system at least on the metro (and busses and trams) quite easily. Afaik there are no direct transfers from the metro to linee S without gates on the whole system.
If I remember correctly the metro stations outside the central zone are closed and don't let you out e. g. with a city subscription, do they? Its quite a while since I've been to Rho... If I'm wrong, ATM could still charge the city tariff only for all riders using the e-wallet regardless where they travel as a discount.

[Suburbanist]

AFAIK only Rho-Fiera has such working exit gates, because a special supplement is required to ride the train to Rho.

Stations outside city limits like Cologno, Sesto San Giovanni and many others on Line 2 don't have exit gates that work. Or didn't when I lived there.

[GENIUS LOCI]

Originally Posted by thun

The main advantage of the Oyster Card are the massive discounts it gives to occasional riders. In Milan where day passes are ridiculously cheap they wouldn't really make sense imo. The only people which could take advantage out such a system in fact are Milanese which ride public transports only occasionally and less than three times a day as it would be a little bit more comfortable for them.

I got an Atm magnetic card and usually buy monthly subscriptions.
In August, as I knew I didn't go to work the entire first week, I couldn't recharge my card but buyng a weekly subscription, which was useless to me.
I didn't buy it, but bought a 10 travels ticket that I partially used (but it could be used again in the future).
To use a ticket owning a magnetic card doesn't make much sense to me

[GENIUS LOCI]

Originally Posted by thun

If I remember correctly the metro stations outside the central zone are closed and don't let you out e. g. with a city subscription, do they?

No, they don't.

But they could within few minutes once they decide to do so, as every exit gate in every metro station got magnetic readers for tickets and cards, as in London; moreover every station got automatic ticket counters within the barriers to allow to the ones who haven't got a proper ticket to get out the station to buy one (I don't know in that case how it will work as the new ticket doesn't have an entrance validation)

[GENIUS LOCI]

Originally Posted by Suburbanist

AFAIK only Rho-Fiera has such working exit gates, because a special supplement is required to ride the train to Rho.

Stations outside city limits like Cologno, Sesto San Giovanni and many others on Line 2 don't have exit gates that work. Or didn't when I lived there.

They changed all the gates before the magnetic system was operative.

And every station, within and out the city limits, since then got entrance and exit gates both with magnetic reader. But exit ones are disabled.

[Neverworld]

Kinda sad to see the bargain €1 ticket price go. Will the other tickets also increase in price (ticket for a day, 10 journeys etc.)?

I made good use of it when I was studying in Milan for a couple of months (before I got my ATM monthly subscription card).

In my opinion they should not only focus on increasing ticket price to save costs, but also on improving the network. I lived in an apartment next to a tram station. The tram had to cross one street to get to that station. The moment the tram opened its doors (and it always had to, as it was a university stop), the tram traffic light went green (or | in this case, if I remember correctly) and when the tram was unloaded it would be red again, staying so for two minutes. I could catch the tram when I was in my apartment and wanted to go and saw it at the stop, but that costs a lot of money.

Also, it helped generating those stockpiles of 5 trams in 5 minutes and then none for 20 which is quite common.

It's the same for the circular 90/91 line, good idea, separate roads but service is hampered by inefficient traffic lights. I once didn't want to take tram/metro from my place to Centrale as I usually did, but took the line 9 near station Porto Genova all the way to Centrale (my apartment was in the south) and it took very, very long.

With a bit of work they could decrease travel time (and thus save costs) a lot.

[Attus]

New tariffs.

Nessuna variazione per gli abbonamenti mensili e annuali.

Month ticket €30, year ticket €300, just like before. A very strange modification of prices.

[Suburbanist]

Subscriptions will be raised later this year.

ATM should aim, on the short term, for AT LEAST a 37-40% fare box recovery rate (as of 2009, it was a meager 18%). Indeed, it was so low that some people were suggesting the costs of the ticket collection system and its enforcement* alone wouldn't be covered by fared if they didn't start raising fares.

*That calculation was a bit tricky because it included items ATM doens't pay for, like police interventions when un-ticketed passenger get violent or confrontational toward ticket inspectors etc.

[GENIUS LOCI]

Originally Posted by Neverworld

Kinda sad to see the bargain €1 ticket price go. Will the other tickets also increase in price (ticket for a day, 10 journeys etc.)?

I made good use of it when I was studying in Milan for a couple of months (before I got my ATM monthly subscription card).

In my opinion they should not only focus on increasing ticket price to save costs, but also on improving the network. I lived in an apartment next to a tram station. The tram had to cross one street to get to that station. The moment the tram opened its doors (and it always had to, as it was a university stop), the tram traffic light went green (or | in this case, if I remember correctly) and when the tram was unloaded it would be red again, staying so for two minutes. I could catch the tram when I was in my apartment and wanted to go and saw it at the stop, but that costs a lot of money.

Also, it helped generating those stockpiles of 5 trams in 5 minutes and then none for 20 which is quite common.

It's the same for the circular 90/91 line, good idea, separate roads but service is hampered by inefficient traffic lights. I once didn't want to take tram/metro from my place to Centrale as I usually did, but took the line 9 near station Porto Genova all the way to Centrale (my apartment was in the south) and it took very, very long.

With a bit of work they could decrease travel time (and thus save costs) a lot.

Traffic lights on many routes are predisposed to go green while a bus/tram is approaching. But ridiculously the past administrations didn't want to activate these devices.

Current one promised to activate and extend 'em, starting just from 90/91 circular line