Transport in Zagreb

Transport in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, relies on a combination of city-managed mass transit and individual transportation. Mass transit is composed of 19 inner-city tram lines and 120 bus routes, both managed entirely by Zagrebački električni tramvaj, commonly abbreviated to ZET. Croatian Railways manages the parallel Zagreb Commuter Rail system. The city is served by the Franjo Tuđman Airport, which carries more than 3,300,000 passengers per year. Zagreb Airport is connected to the Zagreb Bus Station via Pleso Prijevoz shuttle^[1] and to Eugen Kvaternik Square via bus line 290 which connects the aforementioned square with the satellite city of Velika Gorica via the Airport.^[2]

Zagreb drivers typically use a wide network of avenues and other arterial streets. Due to the shape of the city, most of the trips done in the city are on the east-west relation, causing high traffic on roads like Vukovar Avenue, Dubrovnik Avenue and Zagrebačka Avenue. The 18-kilometer (11 mi) Slavonska Avenue is the longest and one of the most congested roads in Zagreb, connecting the inner city to the A3 highway in the east.^[3] The number of registered motorized vehicles in the city in the timespan from 1995 to 2006 has increased by 117% (from around 175 thousand vehicles to around 385 thousand), which when adding into account the number of vehicles from the surrounding counties that transit through the city on a daily basis brings the estimated daily number of vehicles in the city to 520 thousand. Compared to its population, Zagreb has more motorized vehicles than Vienna.^[4] In the year 1990 there was 166 cars per 1000 people in Croatia, in 2012 that number increased to 339‰, and in 2022 there were 491 cars per thousand inhabitants (an increase of 45% compared to 2012), marking the 2nd largest growth of car ownership in the EU, after Romania. Zagreb is struggling with the road infrastructure and the number of available parking spaces being insufficient to meet the demand of such an increase in car ownership.^[3] The city, nonetheless, has more parking spaces per capita in the city centre than Stockholm, Amsterdam and Vienna; however, it lacks a developed park and ride system.^[4] Zagreb is a regional highway hub with eight highways and expressways radially leading into the city through the Zagreb bypass. Major highways and expressways include A1/A6, leading to Gorski Kotar, the Littoral and Dalmatia; A3 leading west to Rakitje, Samobor, Žumberak and Slovenia and east to Rugvica, Ivanić-Grad, Slavonia and Serbia; A2 leading northwest to Zaprešić, Zabok, Krapina and Central Europe; A4 leading northeast to Varaždin, Čakovec, Hungary and on to Eastern Europe; A11 leading southeast to Velika Gorica, Sisak and Petrinja (still in construction) and D10 leading east to Vrbovec and Križevci. Similar to other European cities, Zagreb does not feature a regular grid plan. Donji Grad, the Zagreb downtown, mostly built in the 19th century, features a quasi-rectangular street plan, but the rest of the city depends on the form of wide straight avenues intersecting densely built neighborhoods composed of mostly chaotical street systems. Summer months are commonly used to repair road infrastructure across the city, due to many of the city residents leaving on holiday leave, and thus reducing the load of vehicles and subsequent traffic congestion which would ensue due to roadworks.^[5] Due to years of disrepair, the damage suffered in the 2020 Zagreb earthquake, and the reconstruction of the Remetinec Roundabout completed in 2020.^[6], the Adriatic Bridge has been under reconstruction since 2022, with the estimated end date being Q4 of 2024 or Q1 of 2025, with the tram lines not running across the bridge since 2020, but are expected to start running again when the reconstruction finishes. After the reconstruction finished, work is planned to start on the reconstruction of Liberty Bridge, with the estimated cost of 17.5 million euros ($19.5 million as of August 2024). ^[7] Zagreb features six road bridges across the Sava river, the busiest being the Adriatic Bridge, the Liberty Bridge and the Youth Bridge^{[citation needed]}, the newest being the Homeland Bridge, one pedestrian/cyclist bridge built in 1938 and formerly used as a road bridge and two railway bridges, one of which being the New Railway Bridge, also known as Green Bridge or Hendrix Bridge, built in 1939 and illuminated in 2017.^[8][9] Zagreb road bridges are extremely congested during the rush hour, since there were 3 additional bridges planned in the past 50 years which have not been built as of 2024. After the death of Milan Bandić in 2021, who was the mayor of Zagreb for 16 years at the time of his death, he was succeeded by Tomislav Tomašević, who announced to the media that he plans to build the planned three bridges in the next several years.^[10] There are also plans to expand the Zagreb bypass to alleviate congestion, but traffic experts are skeptical that adding more lanes will solve the problem due to induced traffic.^[11]

The first taxicab ever in Zagreb started operating on June 11, 1901. It was driven by Tadija Bartolović, a skilled fiaker driver. After a successful test drive where Bartolović drove mayor Adolf Mošinsky through Mesnička Street and Gornji Grad, the first taxicab stand in the city was opened on the Ban Jelačić Square.^[12][13]

The association of taxicab drivers Radio Taksi Zagreb, of over 1,150 taxicabs, was the sole provider of taxi services in the city before 2011, when the first of many competitive services started to run taxicabs in the city.^[14] Currently, the most commonly used taxi apps are Uber and Bolt, followed by Cammeo and Ekotaxi.

Mass transit in Zagreb is managed by the company Zagrebački električni tramvaj (ZET), part of the Zagreb Holding, a holding managing utilities and other city services. ZET's trams used to span the entire city, but due to only two expansions (the Dubec and Prečko routes) in the last 20 years, trams are today confined to the inner city. However, a bus network supplements the tram and services a large part of the Zagreb metropolitan area even outside the borders of the city proper. Other transport amenities are also available, such as the Sljeme gondola lift, connecting the Gračani neighborhood with the tram line 15 terminal with the highest peak of Medvednica mountain, or the Zagreb Funicular, connecting Ilica with the old medieval nucleus of the city. Zagreb public transit is poorly developed compared to other EU cities, with the citizens preferring to use cars to riding the public transit.^[4] In 2023, public procurement procedure started for building additional tram lines in Zagreb, specifically connecting Eugen Kvaternik Square via Heinzelova street with the Savišće terminal, and connecting the Zapruđe terminal with the Zagreb goods station. ^[15] Initially there were plans to connect the future tram railway from Savišće to the Airport via the Homeland Bridge, but it seems that the plans were altered in favor of using the existing railway infrastructure to connect Zagreb Airport with Zagreb main railway station using EU funding.^[16] As of 2024, there is no rail connecting the Airport to the city.

The Zagreb Funicular is a railway that runs service every 10 minutes from 6:30 am to 10 pm. The funicular track is 66 metres long, making it the shortest public transport funicular in the world, a trip on it only lasting 64 seconds. The railway is also protected legally as a cultural monument.^[17][18]

The first tram line was opened on September 5, 1891, setting off a vital part of the Zagreb mass transit system. Zagreb today features an extensive tram network with 15 day and 4-night lines running over 117 km (73 mi) of tracks through 255 stations and transporting almost 500,000 passengers per day.^{[19][20][citation needed]} The network covers much of the inner city, but some lines extend to the suburbs, such as line 15 (operating in Podsljeme) or lines 7 and 11 (operating in Dubec). Although the trams are capable of achieving speeds in excess of 70 km/h (43 mph), the unique fact that the network operates mostly at the curb limits their speed to the speed of surrounding vehicles, causing the trams to travel at speeds of 25–50 km/h (15-31 mph) in the inner city, with considerable slowdowns during the rush hours.

The rolling stock is made up by various trams, including around 10 TMK 201 and around 50 ČKD-Tatra T4 remaining from 1970's (a few more may be stored and out of service for longer periods), 51 Tatra KT4, 16 TMK 2100 and 142 new, 100% low-floor TMK 2200 cars, of those 140 are 32 m standard version and only 2 shorter 21 m, with a further purchase planned. TMK 2200 is produced by the Crotram consortium, composed of Končar elektroindustrija and TŽV Gredelj, both from Zagreb.^[21]

With 21 trains, the Zagreb suburban railway mainly covers the eastern and western parts of Zagreb. It mostly operates on the same standard-gauge lines used for Croatian Railways' long-distance trains. The trains normally operate on a 15-minute frequency, but reach only a portion of the city's suburbs. Most commuters use the M102 corridor between Dugo Selo and Zagreb Main Station and M101 corridor between Zagreb Main Station and Savski Marof/Harmica.^[22] Traffic experts criticise the location of railway stations on the east-west line, as well as the fact that the bus lines are running parallel to the east-west rail line, further exacerbating road congestion.^[11] There is a north-south corridor connecting the neighborhoods of Remetinec (M202) and Sveta Klara (M502), but they are not commonly used due to the time gap between trains arriving being on average longer than an hour and the lack of parking spaces near the aforementioned stations, even though they provide the fastest access from Novi Zagreb to the city centre, with the travel time of 8-9 minutes. There have been studies to utilize this corridor more efficiently, by building a train station interconnected with the tram terminal at Savski most.^[23], but as of 2024 no progress has been made.

A second light-rail or metro system, the Zagreb Metro, has been planned numerous times. It would complement the tram commuter rail networks, but currently, it is not even clear if the system would be a full metro or a light Metro. The first plans to build a metro were made in 1971, with the building of a metro system first time appearing in the General Traffic Plan of Zagreb in 1979. However, this project was never been built.^[24]

The introduction to a mass rapid rail system has been analysed and presented in works in the period 1999-2001 after the finalization of the "Transport study of the city of Zagreb" that was co-financed by World Bank and the City of Zagreb with 1.0 million US$ in relation 50/50%. The first plans were presented in 2004, under which a light Metro would have been built, going at speeds of merely up to 35 km/h.

It has been stated that the full Metro is not worth building.^[25] A full metro would cost twice as much as the light metro, and could carry up to 70,000 people per hour in a direction. Forecasts predict that by 2020 the maximum load of passengers will be 7,000. It is worth noting, however, that the current tram network is used by around 200 million passengers every year, which would put the number of daily passengers at 50,000, a number which merits a high capacity rapid transit system.^{[citation needed]}

The light metro's capacity would be 24,000, but due to the significantly cheaper cost, it was the preferred choice in January 2007, when the City Authorities announced plans for a new Metro System consisting of 4-5 metro lines.^[26] Phase 1 of the new metro was going to be 22.7 km long, of which 10 km would be underground. The Metro system would be based on the light rail PTN system currently in use in Vancouver, San Francisco or Singapore, but a full metro system is also a possibility.

There would be three lines running west–east, and two running north–south, converging on the city center. All lines were planned to go underground in the city center. Once the Zagreb metro system would be fully completed it would have 25 km of underground and 55 km overground lines. The cost of this entire system is thought to be about 5.5 billion Euro over 20 years. The initial cost would be between 600 million and 1,14 billion Euro.^[26]

A definitive public transport concept has yet to be decided upon, mostly due to funding issues caused by budgetary constraints. Premetro concept, Light rail concept (fully excluding expensive tunnel boring) on existing heavy rail corridors which need updating and some newly built, or full scale subway. There is no definitive starting point for construction works, with the project unlikely to start before the 2030s.^[27] Some have suggested bringing a part of the existing tram network underground.^[24] In September 2009, a plan for a light rail system was presented at the Croatian Chamber of Civil Engineers (HKIG) meeting by Dr. Davorin Kolić, a rail system designer with international experience.^{[28][29][30][31]} Former mayor Milan Bandić has made multiple promises to build a metro,^[24] but as of 2024 it has not been built.

There is a myth circulating among the citizens of Zagreb that the metro is impossible to build due to underground waters and poor soil conditions and the cost being too expensive, but some experts argue both claims are false, claiming that the cost of building a metro system would be only 31.8 million euros more expensive than the cost of rebuilding Sljeme gondola lift, whereas the light rail variant would be 43 million euros cheaper than the cost of building said gondola lift.^[32]

The river Sava flows through the city, but it is not navigable in Zagreb and the nearest port is located in Sisak. The city has had a history of flooding,^[33] and following the last catastrophic flood in 1964, when inundation affected 60 square kilometres (23 sq mi) of inner-city territory, city authorities had built a system of levées to protect itself from Sava, together with a discharge canal Sava-Odra, completed in 1971. Since then the city's waterside has been strictly isolated, spanned only by three central bridges between the north of Zagreb and Novi Zagreb in the south. Later, seven more bridges were built in the west and the east, also over the levees.

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