| Transportation in Mexico City | |
|---|---|
 Movilidad Integrada logo | |
| Overview | |
| Owner | Mexico City Government |
| Area served | Mexico City and Greater Mexico City. |
| Transit type | Train, Metro, Light Rail, BRT, Trolleybus, Bus, and Shared Bikes. |
| Chief executive | Andrés Lajous Loaeza |
| Website | https://semovi.cdmx.gob.mx/movilidad-integrada |
| Operation | |
| Operator(s) | Sistema de Transporte Colectivo, Metrobús, Servicio de Transportes Eléctricos, Red de Transporte de Pasajeros, Ecobici. |
| Character | Multimodal consisting of multiple public transit systems |
Transportation inMexico City consists of multiple public transit systems that together conform the Integrated Mobility System of Mexico City (Sistema de Movilidad Integrada de la Ciudad de México). This System includes theMexico City Metro, extensive bus/BRT systems (theMetrobús,RTP, thetrolleybus), as well as theXochimilco Light Rail andcable cars. The city is serviced by theBenito Juárez International Airport which is supported by theToluca andZumpango airports, both in the neighboringState of Mexico. Additionally, like other cities around the world, Mexico City has public taxis,public buses and share taxis andrickshaws.Trajineras,gondola-like boats, service theXochimilco Lake area. Previously, the city used to operatestreetcars. TheGreater Mexico City area has additional routes that provide services to the city, including theTren Suburbano commuter railway, theMexibús BRT network, and theMexicable aerial lift system. The transport services are operated by public or private entities but all of them are regulated in the city by theSecretaría de Movilidad (SEMOVI; Secretary of Mobility).
Despite the multiplepublic transport options, privatecars are still widely used throughout the metropolitan area estimated at more than 4.5 million in 2016.[1] Further, motorized public transportation is rated as bad and unsafe by its users, specifically for the high incidence of assaults and robberies as well as harassment, abuse, and sexual harassment of women.[2] The systems are also considered by the users as inefficient, ineffective, and face problems such as the lack of regulation and official supervision.[3]
Mexico City has four rail systems, the Metro being the largest and most important, the Interurban, Suburban trains, as well as the Light Rail systems.
Three of these systems fall under the regulation of the Integrated Mobility System with the Suburban Train being independent form this integrated system.
Additionally, the government of the State of Mexico is currently under the development of a new metro system that will be operated by that State, servicing the territory of Greater Mexico City within the State of Mexico.
Mexico City is served by a 225.9 km (140 mi)metro system operated bySistema de Transporte Colectivo, which is the largest in Latin America. The first portions were opened in 1969 and it has expanded to 12 lines with195 stations. The metro transports 4.4 million people every day. It is the 8th busiest metro system in the world, behind Tokyo (10.0 million), Beijing (9.3 million), Shanghai (7.8 million), Seoul (7.3 million), Moscow (6.7 million), Guangzhou (6.2 million), and New York City (4.9 million).[4] It is heavily subsidized, and has some of the lowest fares in the world, each trip costing 5.00pesos (roughly US$0.27) from 05:00 am to midnight. Several stations displaypre-Columbian artifacts and architecture that were discovered during the metro's construction.[citation needed] However, the metro covers less than half of the total urban area. The Metro stations are also differentiated by the use of icons and glyphs which were created for the illiterate, a unique system that has become iconic characteristic of Mexico City. Each icon was developed based on historical (characters, sites, pre-Hispanic motifs), linguistic, symbolic (glyphs) or geographic references. A complementary system of icons was used for the Metrobús (BRT) stops.
A suburbancommuter rail system, theTren Suburbano, serves the metropolitan area, beyond the reach of themetro, with only one line serving municipalities such asTlalnepantla andCuautitlán Izcalli. The Tren Suburbano is not part of the Integrated Mobility System, since it is operated by a private company.
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El Insurgente, is an intercity rail line. The passenger railway line connects the cities of Toluca and Mexico City.
El Insurgente Train is part of the plans from the Government of Mexico to relaunch passenger railways around the country.
TheLight Rail is a system operated byServicio de Transportes Eléctricos. This system comprises a single line continuing the service of Metro Line 2 over theCalzada de Tlalpan to the south, reaching Xochimilco in the far south of Mexico City.
This system was built over the former streetcar trace and has been recently entirely renewed.
The city's firstbus rapid transit line, theMetrobús, began operation in June 2005, alongAvenida Insurgentes. More and more lines opened and as of 2025 there are 7 routes.[5] As each line opened, the 'pesero' minibuses were removed from each route, in order to reduce pollution and commute times. As of mid-2017, there were 568[6] Metrobús buses. In late 2016 they transported an average of 1.1 million passengers daily.[7]Mexibús provides 4 bus rapid transit lines connectingMetro Ciudad Azteca andMetro Pantitlán withCuautitlán,Ecatepec and other suburban areas in the State of Mexico.[8]
City agencyRed de Transporte de Pasajeros (RTP), formerly M1,[9] operates various networks of large buses including regular, Ecobús,Circuito Bicentenario, Atenea, Express, school and night routes.[10] In 2016, more bus routes were added to replace pesero routes.[11] In 2016, theSVBUS express bus service was launched, with limited stops and utilizing the city's toll roads on the second-level of thePeriférico ring road andSupervía Poniente and connectingToreo/Cuatro Caminos withSanta Fe,San Jerónimo Lídice andTepepan nearXochimilco in the southeast. Suburban buses also leave from the city's main intercity bus stations.
Mexico City has a large variety of concession-based bus routes, colloquially namedpeseros. These are typically half-length passenger buses (known asmicrobús) that sit 22 passengers and stand up to 28. As of 2007[update], the approximately 28,000 peseros carried up to 60 percent of the city's passengers.[12][13][14] In August 2016, Mayor Mancera announced that new pesero vehicle and concessions would be eliminated unless they were ecologically friendly vehicles,[15] and in October 2011 the city's Secretary of Mobility Héctor Serrano states that by the end of the current administration (2018) there would no longer by any peseros/microbuses circulating at all, and that new full-sized buses would take over the routes.[11]
In 2014, the city launched so-called "Bus Rapid Service", with mid-sizedMercedes-Benz Boxer buses carrying 75–85 passengers[16][17] painted purple-on-white, replacing 'peseros' on certain groups of routes. Operation is a concession to the private firms (SAUSA, COTOBUSA, TREPSA) instead of to individual vehicle operators.[18][19][20][21]
Historically, Mexico City has been serviced by a variety of electric transit systems, the Trolleybus is the main electric bus system comprising 12 routes which are typically long and structured lines.
Trolleybus routes are characterised by having an exclusive lane on avenues, primarilyEjes Viales, with a counter-flow lane.
Mexico City has a cable car system to connect high-altitude areas that other means of transportation can hardly access. Its function is to link these areas with metro stations to expedite the commute for people living in these parts of the city, which are generally characterized as lower-income.
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Since the 2010's Mexico City has promoted the use of bicycles to reduce CO2 emissions, resulting in North America's second-largestbicycle sharing system,Ecobici, in which registered residents can get bicycles for 45 minutes with a pre-paid subscription of 300 pesos a year. As of May 2024, ECOBICI has reached over one-hundred million bike rides, and has 709 stations with 9,300 bicycles across an area stretching over 5 boroughs:Azcapotzalco,Benito Juárez,Coyoacán,Cuauhtémoc, andMiguel Hidalgo.[2]
Bicycle stations are fully automatic, and users can access bicycles using their Transit Card or ECOBICI App. Bicycle-service users have access to several permanent dedicated bike paths/lanes/streets, including ones alongPaseo de la Reforma and Avenida Chapultepec as well as one running 59 kilometers (37 miles) fromPolanco toFierro del Toro, which is located south ofCumbres del Ajusco National Park, near theMorelos state line.[22][23] The city's initiative is inspired by forward thinking examples, such asDenmark'sCopenhagenization.
Greater Mexico City is connected through a private network of tollexpressways to the nearby cities ofQuerétaro,Toluca,Cuernavaca,Pachuca andPuebla. Ring roads are theCircuito Interior (inner ring),Anillo Periférico; theCircuito Exterior Mexiquense ("State of Mexico outer loop") toll road skirting the northeastern and eastern edges of the metropolitan area,[24] theChamapa-La Venta toll road skirting the northwestern edge, and theArco Norte completely bypassing the metropolitan area in an arc from west (Toluca) to north (Tula) to east (Puebla). A second level (where tolls are charged) of the Periférico, colloquially called thesegundo piso ("second floor"), was officially opened in 2012, with sections still being completed.[25] TheViaducto Miguel Alemán crosses the city east–west from Observatorio to the airport. In 2013 theSupervía Poniente opened, a toll road linking the newSanta Fe business district with southwestern Mexico City. Inside the city,ejes viales; high-volume, mostly one-way roads, cross the city from side to side in a vast numbered system.
In the late 1970s many arterial roads were redesigned asejes viales; high-volume one-way roads that cross, in theory, Mexico City proper from side to side. Theeje vial network is based on a quasi-Cartesian grid, with theejes themselves being calledEje 1 Poniente,Eje Central, andEje 1 Oriente, for example, for the north–south roads, andEje 2 Sur andEje 3 Norte, for example, for east–west roads. Ring roads are theCircuito Interior (inner ring),Anillo Periférico; theCircuito Exterior Mexiquense ("State of Mexico outer loop") toll road skirting the northeastern and eastern edges of the metropolitan area,[26] theChamapa-La Venta toll road skirting the northwestern edge, and theArco Norte completely bypassing the metropolitan area in an arc from northwest (Atlacomulco) to north (Tula, Hidalgo) to east (Puebla). A second level (where tolls are charged) of the Periférico, colloquially called thesegundo piso ("second floor"), was officially opened in 2012, with sections still being completed.[27] TheViaducto Miguel Alemán crosses the city east–west from Observatorio to the airport. In 2013 theSupervía Poniente opened, a toll road linking the newSanta Fe business district with southwestern Mexico City.
There is an environmental program, calledHoy No Circula ("Today Does Not Run", or "One Day without a Car"), whereby vehicles that have not passed emissions testing are restricted from circulating on certain days according to the ending digit of theirlicense plates; this in an attempt to cut down on pollution and traffic congestion. While in 2003, the program still restricted 40% of vehicles in the metropolitan area,[28] with the adoption of stricter emissions standards in 2001 and 2006,[29] in practice, these days most vehicles are exempt from the circulation restrictions as long as they pass regular emissions tests.[30]
Street parking in urban neighborhoods is mostly controlled by thefraneleros a.k.a. "viene vienes" (lit. "come on, come on"), who ask drivers for a fee to park. Double parking is common (withfraneleros moving the cars as required), impeding on the available lanes for traffic to pass. In order to mitigate that and other problems and to raise revenue,[31] 721 parking meters (as of October 2013), have been installed in the west-central neighborhoodsLomas de Chapultepec,Condesa,Roma,Polanco andAnzures, in operation from 8 AM to 8 PM on weekdays and charging a rate of 2 pesos per 15 minutes, with offenders' cars booted, costing about 500 pesos to remove. 30 percent of the monthly 16 million-peso (as of October 2013) income from the parking-meter system (named "ecoParq") is earmarked for neighborhood improvements. The granting of the license for all zones exclusively to a new company without experience in operating parking meters, Operadora de Estacionamientos Bicentenario, has generated controversy.[32]
Mexico City International Airport is Mexico City's primary airport (IATA Airport Code: MEX). It is thebusiest airport in Latin America with regular (daily) flights toNorth America, mainlandMexico,Central America and theCaribbean,South America,Europe andAsia. In 2019, it was used by over 50 million passengers.[33] The traffic exceeds the current capacity of the airport, which has historically centralized the majority of air traffic in the country.[34]Aeroméxico (Skyteam) is based at this airport, and has codeshare agreements with non-Mexican airlines that span the entire globe. The airport is also a hub forVolaris,VivaAerobus andAeromar. It was a hub forMexicana de Aviacion andInterjet in the past. Mexico City International Airport has two terminals, which are serviced by theAerotrén, aself-drivingpeople mover system.[35]
Felipe Ángeles International Airport (IATA Airport Code: NLU) is Mexico City's secondary airport. The airport opened in 2022, rebuilt from the former Santa Lucía Air Force Base. It is located inZumpango,State of Mexico, 48.8 kilometres (30 mi) north-northeast of thehistoric center of Mexico City by car.[36][37]
Other airports include the neighboring airports atToluca, State of Mexico (IATA: TLC),Querétaro City, Querétaro (IATA: QRO),Puebla City, Puebla (IATA: PBC), andCuernavaca, Morelos (IATA: CVJ).
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 Metrobús | |
 Mexibús | |
 Tren Interurbano | |
| Others | |
| Former | |
 Administration | |
