Metro carries national, international, and local news, along with a wide range of ads targeted to commuters using the rail system. The number of Metro pages corresponds to the average time available for reading during a daily commuter trip. Metro is published six days a week in Stockholm and five days a week in Gothenburg, Sweden's second largest city, where readership has grown to more than 120,000 daily commuters since publication began last February. Last year, Metro International launched free daily transit newspapers in Budapest, the capital of Hungary, and Prague, capital of the Czech Republic, where it is now the largest daily with a print run of 220,000. This past June, a Dutch Metro edition was launched for distribution in the rail transit systems of the six largest cities in the Netherlands.
Major efforts are underway for further international expansion of the successful giveaway concept.
In each city, the publication is distributed free at pickup points throughout the system for riders on subways, trams, commuter rail, and buses. The editorial formula calls for a nonpartisan approach with a balanced menu of local, national, and international news without editorial comments. In addition, each host transit authority has its own daily page to communicate directly with its riders. The transit newspaper also provides the transit system with a new source of revenue.