From Konka horse-drawn trams to electric buses: how public transport has developed

The city’s public transit system has been developing steadily over the past 145 years and now ranks among the largest in the world. It has carried 1.246 billion passengers in the first three months of 2017. City residents have many options including the metro and railways, trams, trolleybuses and buses, as well as taxicabs and shuttles. All public transit has fixed routes and schedules, and passengers can plan trips in advance. However, the city lacked reliable and regular public transit system 150 years ago.

Large Lineika coaches and Konka horse-drawn trams

In 1847, private owners of large coaches ushered in the city’s fixed route public transit system. These coaches were nicknamed Lineikas by city residents.

They featured wheels and metal springs in the summer, but roofs and sled skis in the winter. Passengers sat on two benches, with their backs to each other facing the pavements (sidewalks). Each Lineika coach had a driver and a conductor.

At first, Lineika coaches linked central Moscow with city outposts along Kamer-Kollezhsky Val. In the summer, the routes extended as far as Ostankino, Sokolniki, Petrovsky Park and Serebryany Bor, and were popular with picnickers. Red Square saw the first coach stop that was later relocated to Ilyinskiye Gates.

But not all city residents liked these dusty Lineika coaches whose horses looked haggard. More affluent Muscovites preferred to hire cab drivers or use their own coaches. Therefore city fathers decided to establish regular and reliable public transit. 

In 1864, experts submitted the first plan to lay Konka horse-drawn tram lines all over Moscow, but it was only implemented eight years later, in the run-up to opening the Polytechnical Exhibition. The first horse-drawn Konka trams started running on 25 June 1872 (7 July Gregorian calendar) along a temporary route between Iverskiye Gates and what is now Belarussky Railway Station.

Horses pulled these open-top or roofed tram carriages along tracks. Bi-level open-top carriages were also used.

The city opened the Petrovskaya Line, the first permanent Konka tram line, in 1874. It linked Iverskaya Chapel with Petrovsky Park via Strastnaya Square and Tverskaya Zastava. In 1885-1887, the Belgian Society built Konka tram lines for the city. The route system was revised by November 1891, with the city operating 25 routes for a total route length of 88 versts (94 kilometres). People could ride all of them with one interchange fare pass. This reduced prices and increased passenger traffic volumes considerably. The city had nine facilities for maintaining Konka trams. This system used about 400 carriages and about 2,000 horses.

The city continued to use Konka trams until 1912.

Trams: inception, stagnation and triumphant comeback

In the early 20th century, trams began to supersede Konka trams. The first electric tram route was officially opened on 26 March 1899 (7 April Gregorian calendar). The very next day, trams started running between Butyrskaya Zastava and Petrovsky Park.

Each tram’s passenger compartment had two benches for 20 people, as well as plenty of standing room. The four large windows let in a lot of sunlight in the daytime, with frosted-glass electric lamps in the evenings.

Passengers were impressed with the new transit system’s comfort and speeds. Trams developed speeds of up to 25 versts per hour (about 27 kph). This was a far cry from the slow Konka trams. In their heyday, city residents yelled “Konka tram, go catch a chick!”

In 1901, the city started purchasing Konka tram lines, carriages and maintenance facilities. The Municipal Railway Department, established for operating and maintaining the new electric trams, was directly subordinated to the Moscow City Council. Konka lines were later converted to electric traction, and new tracks were also built. In September 1904, the first trams started running along the Maryinskaya Line (between Sukharevskaya Square and Maryina Roshcha). The Sadovnicheskaya, Bogorodskaya and Vorobyovskaya lines were also converted to electric traction later.

Although the tram infrastructure fell into disrepair during World War I, the capital had 323 kilometres of tram lines in 1918, with 475 trams. From 1919 through 1921, trams mostly carried freight in the city.

Passenger trams resumed operations by 1922 on 14 of the 36 prewar lines. The last steam tram line between Butyrskaya Zastava and Petrovsko-Razumovskoye was converted to electric traction that same year.

The route length of the tram lines reached 395 kilometres by 1926. Local trams continued to operate during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, even on 16 October 1941 when the Moscow Metro ground to a halt. Trams carried people and cargo to every city district. As the war drew to a close, the city was operating 54 tram routes with a total route length of 552 kilometres.

In the 1930s and after the war, the city shut down many tram lines in central Moscow because they hampered plans for rebuilding and widening the streets. In 1936, 116 kilometres of tram lines were pulled up; various lines inside the Garden Ring and along 1st Meshchanskaya Street were relocated to nearby side streets. In 1945-1960, the route length of the city’s tram lines decreased to 491 kilometres. The number of trams decreased from 2,200 to 1,700, and passenger volume fell from 56 to 24 percent.

But tram lines continued to expand in outlying districts. In 1951-1958, new tram lines were built at the Alekseyevsky campus and in Cheryomushki. Trams started running to the new Lomonosov Moscow State University building on Leninskiye Gory, as well as on Marsistskaya and Skhodnenskaya streets. By 1972, tram lines had reached into numerous residential areas, including Otkrytoye Motorway, 8   Marta Street, Tushino, Khoroshevo-Mnyovniki, Chertanovo, Volkhonka town and the 52nd Novogireyevo residential block.

Advanced construction and track maintenance technologies were introduced. The city started using concrete crossties, combined tram/snow plough and track-polishing carriages. Modern Tatra trams were delivered from Czechoslovakia. The city also introduced a dispatch and block signal system that operated traffic lights, as well as track switches. In addition, conductors were replaced with coin-operated ticket dispensers.

The last Soviet-era tram line was opened in Strogino in 1982, and subsequent economic problems in the country slowed transit system development.

The city started rebuilding its tram system in the early 21st century. Total tram route length is now 417 kilometres, with over 620 trams running on 47 routes on weekdays. This year, the city fielded the first Vityaz-M low-floor tram carriages, and 300 more trams of this class will be delivered in the next three years.

In a modern city, trams remain popular as an environmentally friendly transit system. New lines are scheduled to be built in Golyanovo,  Biryulyovo Zapadnoye and Ivanovskoye; and the latter line might be extended to Balashikha. Tram lines will also be reinstated near Belarussky Railway Station.

Buses and trolleybuses

In the early 20th century, city authorities did not want to create competition for the trams; so the first bus line linked Kamer-Kollezhsky Val near Maryina Roshcha with Ostankino. Opened on 17 July 1907, the line operated two open-top buses owned by Count Alexander Sheremetev. The first commercial city bus route was not opened before 8 August 1924, operating eight British Leyland buses between Kalanchovskaya Square and Alexandrovsky (now Belarussky) Railway Station via Myasnitskaya Street.

In the next two years, buses carried 32.6 million passengers. By 1938, bus routes had reached into the city’s outlying areas and also encompassed central motorways where tram tracks were being dismantled.

In January 1942, 40 buses were sent from Moscow to besieged Leningrad for evacuating its residents. They carried over 169,000 people to Soviet-controlled territory across ice-covered Lake Ladoga.

One year after the war ended, Moscow already had about 600 buses running on 32 routes with a total route length of 322 kilometres. And seven new routes were opened by 1947. Annual passenger traffic volumes exceeded 123 million people. Bus traffic hit an all-time high when the city started building new districts. In 1970, the city already had 256 routes, including 226 municipal and 30 suburban. By the late 1980s, buses accounted for one-third of passenger traffic volumes, with about 3.3 million people using them daily. This was quite a lot because the city had a population of 8.5 million at that time.

The city’s first trolleybus line opened on 15 November 1933 and linked Tverskaya Zastava with a Belt Railway bridge in Pokrovskoye-Streshnevo.

The first navy-blue trolleybus had a metal-coated wooden frame and a maximum speed of 50 kph. The passenger compartment featured 37 soft seats, mirrors, nickel-coated railings and luggage nets. The front doors were opened manually by the driver, with the conductor opening the rear doors. The trolleybuses’ heaters were turned on in cold weather, a new advantage.

The second line linking Arbat with Dorogomilovskaya Zastava opened in 1934. Two years later, trolleybuses started replacing trams en masse. At that time, the legendary B (Bukashka/Bug) route was inaugurated, linking Kudrinskaya Square and Kursky Railway Station.

By the summer of 1941, the city had 17 trolleybus routes, but this system reached its heyday between 1960 and 1972. Trolleybus lines expanded from 540 to 884 kilometres, becoming the longest in the world. 

In the 1990s, the city’s bus and trolleybus infrastructure began to fall into disrepair because of budget cuts. It did not receive a new lease of life before 2010 when the old buses and trolleybuses began to be replaced with new models.

The first post-Soviet trolleybus line was opened on 15 September 2013 and linked Yugo-Zapadnaya metro station with a terminus on Ozyornaya Street via Pokryshkina and Nikulinskaya streets. In October 2016, the city launched the Magistral surface transit system. All central bus, trolleybus and tram routes now pass via the central districts and the main motorways, reducing the number of interchanges for passengers.

Moscow’s trolleybus system is the sixth-oldest and the world’s longest, at 600 kilometres. Today, there are plans to reduce the number of trolleybus contact wires and replace some trolleybuses with battery-operated electric buses. Electric buses don’t have to connect to the grid at some sections of the route and are therefore more manoeuvreable. Electric buses, due to replace some diesel buses in the near future, are currently being tested.

Taxicabs

It is believed that the first local taxi appeared in September 1907 when Golos Moskvy, the Voice of Moscow newspaper, wrote about an Oldsmobile car with the sign “Driver, fares by mutual agreement” on city streets. The city had two taxi fleets by 1930, with 200-300 cars, including Italian-made Fiat 502 and French-made Renaults, taking to the streets.

The taxi industry thrived in the 1960s and ‘70s, with the city operating 21 taxi fleets. In 1970, 14,500 taxicabs operated on city streets, increasing to 16,000 in 1975. The city had 18,000-19,000 taxis throughout the 1980s. Legal taxis almost disappeared in the 1990s, with private drivers ruling the streets.

The current taxi market has been almost legalised, and 82,000 licenses have been issued to drivers. Only yellow taxicabs will remain from 1 July, and the drivers of all other cars will be fined for illegal activity. This will guarantee that only experienced drivers will remain in the business, traffic safety will be ensured, and prices will also be restricted. In the past three years, average fares have fallen by 30 percent, and waiting times now average seven minutes. The city also operates social taxicabs for people with disabilities.

Shuttles

The first shuttles appeared in Moscow in the 1930s. At that time, the city operated ZIS-101 and ZIS-110 passenger cars that linked the most important local squares, railway stations, major exhibitions and parks. They also drove passengers to sports events. In 1939, 120 shuttles took visitors to the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition, now VDNKh, on a par with trams, trolleybuses and buses. Unlike taxis with meters, shuttle drivers charged the same fares as buses and trolleybuses of that period.

In 1964, the city had 18 daytime and ten late-night shuttle lines. The RAF and PAZ minibuses also began to be used, eventually ousting passenger cars from the shuttle market. The number of local shuttles grew year after year, and peaked in the early 2000s. But the quality left a lot to be desired; and the city moved to overhaul the passenger transport sector in 2015-2016. Old shuttles were replaced with more capacious, convenient and safer vehicles. They retain all public transit benefits for passengers who can pay their fares with any current passes and cards.

Metro

The first metro line opened on 15 May 1935, linking the Sokolniki and Park Kultury stations, with a branch to Smolenskaya station. This came as a major breakthrough in the development of local public transit. The first 11-plus kilometre route had 13 stations, with each two-section trains consisting of four Type A-unit carriages. Four new metro lines were opened before the Great Patriotic War, and the Circle Line was completed in 1954.

The metro is currently being developed at a furious pace, now featuring 13 lines, two of which will become interlinked in the future, with a total route length of 346 kilometres. This does not include the Monorail Line and the Moscow Central Circle (MCC). The metro has 206 stations, including 48 with cultural landmark status.

The total route length of the metro is to reach 650 kilometres by 2025. The city continues to build the Third Interchange Circuit and new lines in the Troitsky and Novomoskovsky administrative areas, plus another line towards Nekrasovka, and is implementing many other projects. The current lines are also being upgraded, with the Filyovskaya Line being the largest reconstruction project.

Monorail Line and MCC as an alternative to metro

Built in 2004, the 4.7-kilometre Monorail Line with six stations links Timiryazevskaya metro station with VDNKh. The first “excursion” trains started running on 20 November 2004; and the system became fully operational on 10 January 2008. The Monorail Line has now reverted to the “excursion” mode.

There are plans to replace the line with trams soon. The Monorail Line’s overhead tracks will make it possible to extend the tram route from Ostankino to Timiryazevskaya metro station and link it with the currently isolated Krasnopresnenskaya tram line.

The Moscow Central Circle (MCC) started operating in the autumn of 2016, taking the load off metro stations in central districts and allowing many residents of nearby districts better transit access.

Indicatively, the  Moscow Belt Railway (MBR) was built as far back as 1905, but passenger service dd not become popular.

The MBR was the only railway in Moscow that was not converted to electric power until 2016, although the first commuter train travelled from Yaroslavsky Railway Station to Mytishchi on 29 August 1929. Currently, rapidly developing commuter train services are becoming part of the city’s public transit system.

Last year, transport workers renovated and upgraded 290 stations and platforms. Transit links/hubs are being built, including those in the Moscow Region (Usovo and Solnechnaya), the Kurskoye and Kievskoye lines on the Moscow Railway continue to be developed, and commuter train passengers can use the standard fare passes and cards being issued by Moscow and regional transit authorities.

The MCC, which uses the Moscow Belt Railway route, has integrated successfully with the city’s public transit system. Riders can use 31 stations with 14 seamless connections to metro lines and six interchanges for commuter train stations/stops. It is also possible to change for city buses, trolleybuses or trams at virtually every station.

Electric trains feature heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, bio-toilets, information screens, free Wi-Fi and outlets for charging mobile devices. The conveniently located line and its comfortable trains are popular with city residents. By late 2016, Lastochka trains had carried over 25 million passengers, with the MCC’s passenger traffic volumes reaching 50 million in the first six months of 2017.