Moscow is soon to close its sole monorail line, which costs 800 million rubles per year ($11 million) to operate and carries just 1.5 million passengers annually.
By contrast, Moscow’s Central Circle train line carries the same amount in just three days. In the coming weeks, Russia’s monorail will be closed for repairs but will never open again, according to city hall sources as cited by Vedomosti newspaper.
The line, which is just 4.7 kilometres long, is no longer considered to be value for money. According to Vedomosti, it has just 39 regular passengers – meaning people who use their contactless reusable Troika card more than 20 days a month.
Opened in 2004, the line is part of the Moscow Metro system and has been the subject of rumours about its closure for years.
While monorails are common in Europe for transport in amusement parks and airports, there are only two others used as a form of urban transport in the entire continent, in the German cities of Dortmund and Wuppertal.
As a whole, the entire Moscow Metro system has 275 stations on 15 metro lines, and, on average, carries 9 million passengers every weekday, making it Europe’s busiest metropolitan train system.
