The São Paulo Metro completes tomorrow (24), 42 years of foundation. It is expected that at the time the company reached the mark of 19.6 billion passengers since the start of its commercial operation, in September 1974.
São Paulo’s Metro was founded as a state-owned company 41 years ago (in April 24, 1968), in a meeting held in the office of Mayor Brigadier José Vicente Faria Lima, in Ibirapuera Park. The historic meeting formalized the establishment of the Subway Company of São Paulo – Metro, with initial capital was NCr $ 10,000,000.00.
On December 14, 1968, a symbolic act marked the groundbreaking of the North-South Line, Current Line 1. On September 6, 1972, a composite prototype made the first voyage of the Sao Paulo Metro between stations Saude and Jabaquara.
On September 14, 1974, after intense training program with the public, Metro put into operation the first stretch of seven kilometers of line between stations Jabaquara and Vila Mariana, setting, from then on, a new transportation concept in Sao Paulo.
The São Paulo Metro, which now operates a network of 62.3 km of lines and 56 stations (counting only once the stations connected on two lines), is among the world’s most used operating in density, with 11.6 million of passengers carried per kilometer of line.
At the start of commercial operation, the underground worked Monday to Friday, from 9am to 13pm, and closed to the public on weekends. At the time, the daily average of passengers was only 2548 people.
Today, at peak hours from 7am to 8am and from 5:30pm to 6:30pm, the interval between trains (headways) is one of the lowest in the world. Line 3 has only 101 seconds; Line 1, 109 seconds; Line 2, 137 seconds; and Line 5, which operates with an interval of 262 seconds. Just two Metro in the world programs interval between trains of less than 101 seconds: Moscow and Paris.
With a total fleet of 134 trains (each has six cars), the network operates 108 trains in peak hours. Last year, the Metro started the refurbishment of 98 trains, which had circulated since the start of operations on Lines 1 and 3.
In March 2010, the Sao Paulo Metro was named the Best of the Americas (Americas Best Metro) in accordance with The Metross, major Metro industry award in the world. The announcement was made during the MetroRail 2010 Conference, which held on 22-25 March in London (UK), 250 executives and representatives of 70 Metro companies in 40 countries.
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