Frankfurt U-Bahn

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Frankfurt U-Bahn
Elevated route for motorway and subway at Rosa-Luxemburg-Straße, facing Ginnheim; Europaturm tower on the left
Overview
Owner	RMV
Locale	Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany
Transit type	Light rail[1] (Stadtbahn), rapid transit
Number of lines	9[2]
Number of stations	86[2]
Daily ridership	470,100 (2016)[3]
Annual ridership	132.2 million (2016)[2]
Website	VGF
Operation
Began operation	4 October 1968[4]
Operator(s)	Stadtwerke Verkehrsgesellschaft Frankfurt am Main (VGF)
Character	Mostly underground, with significant sections at-grade (including at-grade intersections), with some street running (U5 line)
Train length	50–105 metres (164–344 ft)
Headway	5-15 minutes (daytime)
Technical
System length	64.9 km (40.3 mi)[2]
Track gauge	1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) standard gauge
Electrification	600 V DC from overhead catenary
Top speed	80 km/h (50 mph)
System map

The Frankfurt U-Bahn is a Stadtbahn (premetro) system serving Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany. Together with the Rhine-Main S-Bahn and the Frankfurt Straßenbahn, it forms the backbone of the public transport system in Frankfurt. Its name derives from the German term for underground, Untergrundbahn. Since 1996, the U-Bahn has been owned and operated by Stadtwerke Verkehrsgesellschaft Frankfurt am Main [de] (VGF), the public transport company of Frankfurt, and is part of the Rhein-Main-Verkehrsverbund (RMV) transport association. The licence contract is up to 31 December 2031 and is renewable. The contracting authority of VGF is the municipal transport company traffiQ.

The U-Bahn opened in 1968,^[4] and has been expanded several times. It consists of three inner-city tunnels and above-ground lines in the suburbs. About 59% of the track length is underground.^{[citation needed]} The network operates in a variety of right of ways typical of a light rail system, with above-ground sections operating on street and core sections running underground in the inner city.^[1][5]

Like all public transport lines in Frankfurt, the system has been integrated in the Rhein-Main Verkehrsverbund (RMV) since 1995. From 1974 until the founding of the RMV, the Stadtwerke were shareholders in the predecessor group, the Frankfurter Verkehrsverbund (FVV; Frankfurt Transport Association).

The network consists of 86 stations on nine lines, with a total length of 64.85 kilometres (40.30 mi).^[2] Eight of the nine lines travel through the city center (line U9 being the exception). In 2016, the U-Bahn carried 132.2 million passengers,^[2] an average of approximately 361,200 passengers per day. Most recently, on 12 December 2010, two new lines were added, the U8 and the U9 (both part of the long-planned but only partially completed fourth route), which opened up the university campus area and the new development area on Riedberg.