Without a driver, relics in the stations: how the original metro in Thessaloniki is working

After almost two decades of construction, Thessaloniki has a metro — and not just any metro. Autonomous, “salvation” for the urban center.

The second largest city in Greece, Thessaloniki, at the end of 2024 its first metro line.

Fast transport, fully autonomous and designed for alleviate a chronic problem: congestion in the urban center “squeezed” between the gulf and the hills, with direct impacts on air quality.

The new main line extends for more than 10 kilometers and connect 13 stations state-of-the-art through fast compositions manufactured in Italy.

Without a driver, the system works with synchronized automatic doors between trains and platforms and is monitored, in real time, from an Operational Control Center.

The announced capacity is almost 20 thousand passengers per hour in every sense — a technological leap that is still rare in Greece, despite already existing in cities like Copenhagen.

For many residents, the change it is above all practice. The report gives as an example Marina Argyrou, a metro employee, who previously depended on her car to get from the suburbs to the center, facing trips often lasting more than half an hour and the “nightmare” of parking. With the subway, the piece says, the same route can be done in about 15 minutes.

The first indicators of demand and urban impact are also positive. Georgios Zygogiannis, director of Operations and Maintenance, states that the system serves, on average, 100 thousand passengers per day and that it is already possible to observe a reduction almost 15% in traffic in the city center. For him, the project opens “a completely new chapter” in the urban history of Thessaloniki, with mobility and environmental benefits, but also a “change in the mentality” of the inhabitants.

Relics

But building a metro “of the future” literally forced excavate the past.

The subsoil of Thessaloniki proved to be a dense archaeological archivewhich led to deeper than anticipated interventions and changes to several station designs.

In total, more than 300 thousand artifactsin an operation described as the largest archaeological excavation in northern Greece.

Part of these finds are now on display in stations such as Agias Sofias and Venizelou, transformed into underground museums that integrate ancient remains into the daily lives of passengers.

The price of this complexity was high: successive delays and budget overruns, compounded by financial difficulties and administrative challenges. In the final balance, the investment exceeded the 3 billion euros.

Faced with the risk of losing support, the European Union reinforced financing with an additional 1 billion euros through the Cohesion Policy Fund, while the European Investment Bank stepped forward with loans worth hundreds of millions.

The first line is, however, just the start. Extensions are planned to reach more suburbs — including Kalamaria — with the ambition of stimulating economic activity, creating jobs and attracting visitors to the city’s new underground “galleries”, now linked by a simple metro ticket.