Greece’s second city, Thessaloniki, saw its first metro transit system open for passengers on Saturday, 30 November, after work on it began more than 20 years ago.
The 10km-long, east-west underground line has two, single-track tunnels connecting 13 stations.
It is Greece’s first driverless metro system, and is expected to carry 313,000 passengers a day in this city of about a million people.
A five-station extension to Kalamaria, begun in 2013, is expected to open in 2025.
Delays were caused by and Greece’s financial crisis from 2009-18, and a large number of significant archeological finds from the ancient Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman periods.
In some cases, the finds necessitated station redesigns, said Italy’s Webuild, who built the system with with Hitachi and the Greek company, Aktor.
The line will be managed by Thema, a joint venture of Italy’s ATM (51%), which operates driverless transit systems in Milan and Copenhagen, and French infrastructure group Egis (49%).
Thema won an 11-year contract in June 2023.
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