[pedantsamaritan]

I know NYC subway runs 24x7, while many other systems do not. I was curious on the actual number of trains.

I made a bunch of assumptions, picked a city to compare NYC to (Berlin), and did some math.

NYC Subway may run ~960 trains per week per line. Berlin s-bahn & u-bahn may run ~1270 trains per week per line.

I am curious how other cities compare

Assumptions:

- u-bahn day peak = 5 hours @ 4min/train

- u-bahn day = 8 hours @ 10min/train

- u-bahn night = 8 hours @ 15min/train

- u-bahn weekend = 24 hours @ 15min/train

- s-bahn day peak = 5 hours @ 10min/train

- s-bahn day = 9 hours @ 15min/train

- s-bahn night = 7 hours @ 30min/train

- s-bahn weekend = 24 hours @ 20min/train

- nyc peak = 5 hours @ 10 min/train

- nyc off-peak = 19 hours @ 10min/train

- nyc weekend = 24 hours @ 12min/train

[laurencerowe]

It's hard for NYC's subway to run at the frequencies others manage since the system has so many branches and reverse branches. In London I believe there are plans to split the Northern Line into two separate lines to enable running at higher frequencies. The Victoria Line now runs at 36 trains per hour at peak, 100sec/train.

Conversely NYC can run trains all night because so much of the system is double tracked, letting them close one track each way for maintenance overnight.