page_title: Urban rail transit
section_title: Rapid transit
hierarchical_section_title: Urban rail transit / Urban rail transit types / Rapid transit
context_page_description: Urban rail transit is an all-encompassing term for various types of local rail systems providing passenger service within and around urban or suburban areas. The set of urban rail systems can be roughly subdivided into the following categories, which sometimes overlap because some systems or lines have aspects of multiple types.
context_section_description: A rapid transit system is a railway—usually in an urban area—with high passenger capacities and frequency of service, and (usually) full grade separation from other traffic (including other rail traffic). It is often known as "heavy rail" to distinguish it from light rail and bus rapid transit.
  In most parts of the world these systems are known as a "metro" which is short for "metropolitan".  The term "subway" is used in many American systems as well as in Glasgow and Toronto. The system in London is named the "Underground", and commonly nicknamed the "tube". Systems in Germany are called "U-Bahn", which stands for "Untergrundbahn" (underground track). Many systems in East and Southeast Asia such as Taipei, Chennai and Singapore are called MRT which stands for "mass rapid transit". Systems which are predominantly elevated may be referred to as "L" as in Chicago or "Skytrain", as in Bangkok and Vancouver. Other less common names include "T-bane" (in Scandinavia) and "MTR".
caption: The Hong Kong MTR operates a high capacity rapid transit network.
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