Sergei Sobyanin outlines key Moscow Metro goals for 2026

The municipality will continue to take extensive efforts to expand the metro, Sergei Sobyanin shares on his MAX channel.

Expanding Moscow Metro

In September 2025, the authorities wrapped up Phase I of the Troitskaya metro line (25.2 kilometers), with 11 stations, from ZIL in Moscow’s Danilovsky District to Novomoskovskaya in Kommunarka. The inaugurating ceremony to launch Vavilovskaya, Akademicheskaya, Krymskaya and ZIL stations was in fact attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Every day, this line is used by residents who take about 90,000 rides.

Furthermore, it is the first metro line to feature digital navigation signage since the opening of its stations. The Novatorskaya — ZIL section has 132 digital signs in all, which can be found nowhere in Russia. Today, the Moscow Metro features more than 200 innovative navigation signs. Introduced in August 2024, they have proven their effectiveness and received positive feedback from passengers.

“We are improving the capital’s metro infrastructure non-stop. And we have launched the Yuzhnoye and Stolbovo train depots,” Moscow Mayor wrote.

Source: Sergei Sobyanin’s Max channel

The Moscow Metro renews its rolling stock faster than countries in Europe and Americas. In 2025, the authorities bought 320 new Russian-made carriages; so, the Moscow Metro fleet was 80 percent renewed last year. Since 2010, the average age of metro cars has decreased almost by half — from more than 20 to 12 years.

Trains for the capital’s metro are produced by Metrowagonmash JSC. Its latest carriages are 97 percent made from domestic components.

As a result, the average ride duration in morning rush hours decreased by 2.1 minutes to 24.3 minutes in 2025, whereas in pre-pandemic 2019, it was 26.4 minutes.

The 2026 plan of action covers the following projects:

— launch of the first section of the Rublyovo-Arkhangelskaya line from Delovoy Tsentr to Bulvar Generala Karbysheva, to have five stations, with two existing stations — Delovoy Tsentr and Shelepikha (the Big Circle Line, commonly known as the BCL) — and three new ones, such as Zvenigorodskaya, Narodnoye Opolcheniye and Bulvar Generala Karbysheva;

— further testing of Russia’s first-ever driverless metro train, Moscow-2024, on the Big Circle Line; and

— delivery of 312 Moscow-2026 carriages for the Zamoskvoretskaya and Rublyovo-Arkhangelskaya lines.

The Moscow Metro continues to expand its team with skilled personnel. In 2025, they hired more than 9,300 employees, including electric train drivers, electrical fitters, tram drivers and other professionals.

There are also more and more women who drive electric trains; they have operated advanced trains for five years and are systematically getting employed on newly built lines. By the end of 2025, there were approximately 150 female drivers in the capital’s metro.

More than 82,000 people, both new and existing employees who needed to improve their skills, took training and advanced training programs at the Moscow Transport Corporate University in 2025.

Trailblazer self-driving metro train

In January 2026, Vladimir Putin and Sergei Sobyanin launched the official testing of Russia’s trailblazer self-driving metro train.

“Based on Moscow-2024, the train runs on the Big Circle Line without passengers, and, for now, it is controlled by a human driver. In the first month, it successfully covered 650 kilometers,” Moscow Mayor added.

Developed and maintained by the Center for Research and Development of Unmanned Transport, the self-driving software consists of several systems intended for the train, infrastructure, scheduling and dispatching. Therefore, the train can automatically accelerate, brake, open and close its doors at stations. Furthermore, the software allows for maintaining the shortest required time interval between trains in coordination with the Moscow Metro’s traffic management system. During testing of the driverless train, a driver is however present in accordance with legal requirements in order to control the system and keep an eye on traffic safety.

Today, the Moscow Metro has the shortest train intervals of any metros worldwide. During the rush hours, they are 60 to 90 seconds on the backbone lines, while standard time intervals are 2.5 to 3 minutes at metro in Paris and 1.5 to 2 minutes at Beijing’s metro. With self-driving technologies, it is important to maintain and, if necessary, further reduce the time intervals between trains in rush hours.

At the first stage, the tests will involve the key driverless train control systems such as:

— the auto-driving system, which controls acceleration, braking, maintaining permissible speed and precise stopping of the train;

— the automatic fall detection system, which detects people or foreign objects on rails for prompt action to prevent incidents;

— its machine vision system that detects irregularities in the entire metro infrastructure along the train’s route; and

— the communication system with the dispatch center, which transmits real-time data from the rail vehicle and helps respond to incidents quickly. In the future, the equipment will also be able to automatically create train schedules.

On a later stage, they will test the driverless technology on the newest Moscow-2026 metro train to continuously run without passengers before the end of this year. During the testing period, the vehicle will be integrated into the line schedule to observe the standard time intervals between the Moscow Metro’s trains. It is expected to start carrying its first passengers in 2027.

Pursuant to the urban transport development strategy, the first self-driving metro line — the Big Circle Line — is scheduled for implementation for 2030.