Riyadh Metro Carried 60.7 Million Journeys in Six Months — Usage Is Now Proven

Last verified: 1 September 2026. Riyadh Metro recorded 60.7 million passenger journeys in the first half of 2026, approximately 335,000 a day. In a portfolio where progress is often described through awards, construction percentages and future capacity, this is unambiguous operating evidence: the completed network is being used at scale. [S1]

The unit needs care. These are passenger journeys, not 60.7 million unique people. A commuter travelling to work and home five days a week can generate roughly ten journeys. A rider transferring between metro and bus may also appear in separate modal totals.

The 83-million national total is therefore primarily an urban-transport story, and within that category primarily a Riyadh Metro story. It should not be presented as 83 million long-distance rail passengers.

The metro supplied nearly three-quarters of the national rail count

Transport General Authority figures reported for the first and second quarters place urban rail at 42 million and 36 million journeys respectively. Riyadh Metro contributed 31 million in Q1 and 29.7 million in Q2. The other large urban system is not a city metro: the automated people mover inside King Abdulaziz International Airport carried about 10 million journeys in Q1 and 3.9 million in Q2. Princess Nourah University’s automated system recorded approximately 621,000 and 635,000. [S1] [S2]

That composition matters. Airport people-mover journeys are part of an air passenger’s terminal transfer, not substitutes for private-car trips across Jeddah. Riyadh Metro is the component most directly testing whether a car-oriented city will use high-capacity public transport.

Intercity services are commercially and strategically important but numerically much smaller. In Q1, the Haramain High-Speed Railway carried two million journeys, the Eastern Train more than 349,000 and the Northern Train approximately 218,000. [S2] The national aggregate should retain these segments rather than using “rail” as if every journey had the same distance or purpose.

Q2 was lower than Q1 but far above a year earlier

Riyadh Metro’s 29.7 million Q2 journeys were 1.3 million, or 4.2 per cent, below Q1. Adjusting for the quarter’s extra calendar day, average daily journeys fell about 5.2 per cent—from approximately 344,000 to 326,000.

This is not evidence of structural decline. Q2 included a different working-day and holiday pattern, and a young network can experience opening effects, service changes and seasonal travel. Against Q2 2025, journeys rose from 23.6 million to 29.7 million, a 25.8 per cent increase. [S1] [S3]

The more useful test is a monthly and line-level series. The published H1 summary does not show weekday versus weekend use, peak loads, station entries, transfers, passenger kilometres, cancellations or crowding. Without those fields, 60.7 million proves demand but cannot diagnose network performance.

Riyadh Metro had already passed 100 million cumulative journeys in August 2025, less than nine months after service began. Four interchange-heavy stations—Qasr Al Hokm, KAFD, stc and National Museum—accounted for more than 29 per cent of usage at that milestone. [S4] That concentration is consistent with a network whose value comes from connections, but current station-level distribution has not been published for H1 2026.

Usage is meaningful; capacity utilisation is still modest on the published ultimate denominator

The six-line network spans 176 kilometres and 85 stations. RCRC planning material describes a system designed to serve 3.6 million passengers daily. [S5]

H1’s average of approximately 335,000 daily journeys equals about 9.3 per cent of that 3.6-million figure. That is not a simple under-utilisation verdict. The RCRC number is an ultimate system-scale projection or capacity description, not a disclosed first-year ridership forecast. Capacity varies by line, train frequency and peak direction; early networks ramp over years as land use and travel habits adapt.

Normalising by network length gives roughly 1,900 passenger journeys per route-kilometre per day across H1. That calculation is useful only as a future Riyadh baseline. It should not be benchmarked casually against older metros: route-kilometre intensity changes with station spacing, transfer design, train length, service frequency, urban density and whether the published count treats an interchange as one journey or two. A comparable international benchmark would require a common definition of unlinked boardings or linked trips and an operating-day denominator.

Still, the comparison sets the scale of the remaining task. A world-class ridership dashboard should publish:

• journeys and passenger kilometres by line and month;
• peak-hour passengers per direction against practical capacity;
• train kilometres, frequency, punctuality and cancellations;
• station entries, interchange volumes and accessibility uptime;
• operating expenditure and fare revenue; and
• estimated car trips and emissions avoided using a published method.

The H1 total answers “is it used?” It does not answer “how intensively is each asset used?”

The bus network is a complement, not a rival denominator

Riyadh’s city buses recorded 19.55 million passenger journeys in Q1 2026, compared with 31 million on the metro. [S6] Adding the two gives 50.55 million recorded boardings or journeys, but not unique trips: a bus-to-metro transfer can count in both systems.

That potential double count is a sign of integration, not necessarily a flaw. Buses extend the catchment of fixed rail and solve the first- and last-mile problem. The performance measure should be linked journeys, transfer time and total door-to-door travel—not a contest between bus and metro totals.

Riyadh’s original bus fare was SAR4 for two hours, allowing transfers within that validity period. [S7] Multiplying 60.7 million metro journeys by SAR4 would produce SAR242.8 million, but that is not fare revenue. Pass products, concessions, free riders, integrated transfers and the exact allocation between modes make the calculation invalid. No H1 farebox revenue or operating subsidy is published.

The economic claim needs modal shift, not only turnstile counts

The metro’s Vision 2030 case includes lower congestion, more reliable access to jobs, reduced household dependence on cars, safer travel and lower local emissions. Ridership is necessary for all of them, but does not prove any individually.

To measure modal shift, RCRC would need repeated household travel surveys or anonymised mobility data showing the share of trips by private car, taxi, metro, bus, walking and cycling. To measure congestion, it needs comparable corridor speeds and travel times controlling for road works and population growth. To measure access, it needs the number of jobs and residents within a realistic walk or feeder journey of frequent service.

Riyadh is still expanding roads at the same time. In June 2026, RCRC launched a fourth group of major road projects costing SAR9.8 billion and designed for more than 950,000 vehicles a day. [S8] That does not contradict metro policy; a growing metropolis needs a multimodal network. It does make it harder to attribute any change in congestion to rail alone.

The metro can also reshape land values and development around stations. Those benefits become durable when planning rules allow dense, walkable, mixed-use districts and when accessibility gains are not captured only through higher rents. No H1 ridership release evaluates this distribution.

Farebox recovery and service quality are the next accountability layer

Public transport need not cover all costs through fares. Congestion relief, safety, inclusion and emissions benefits can justify subsidy. But the subsidy should be visible: gross operating cost, fare and advertising revenue, concession payments, maintenance reserves and public support per passenger journey.

Absent those numbers, it is impossible to compare Riyadh’s operating economics with other metros or determine whether rising ridership improves farebox recovery. Capital cost is also separate from operating cost; a heavily used asset can still require subsidy and remain socially valuable.

Reliability matters just as much as financial return. The first two H1 releases contain no punctuality, availability or disruption data. A passenger total can rise while crowding or outages worsen. Conversely, empty off-peak capacity can be an intentional service commitment rather than inefficiency.

Countercase: early usage is the appropriate first success test

Demand forecasting for a new system is uncertain, and Riyadh Metro opened its lines in stages from late 2024. Expecting immediate approach to ultimate capacity would be unrealistic. The first task was to build a habit and prove that residents would choose rail.

Sixty million journeys in six months clears that test. Q2 growth of 25.8 per cent over the same quarter in 2025 suggests the network is still acquiring use rather than relying only on launch curiosity. The scale is especially significant in a city developed around private vehicles.

The analytical caution is not to turn valid ridership into unmeasured claims about unique passengers, congestion relief or financial self-sufficiency.

What would falsify this assessment

A revised TGA series that defines the unit differently or removes airport people movers from urban rail would change the national composition. Line-level validations could show higher or lower daily use than the rounded quarterly totals imply.

Evidence of sustained declining journeys after adjusting for seasonality would weaken the ramp-up conclusion. Conversely, published passenger-kilometres, rising mode share, improved corridor travel times and transparent farebox recovery would establish benefits beyond usage.

Riyadh Metro is no longer a construction promise. It is an operating public service carrying roughly a third of a million journeys a day. The next standard is not whether the trains run; it is whether transparent service, modal-shift and economic data show that the network is changing how Riyadh moves.

Related Vision 2030 Context

• Riyadh’s Digital District: ambition, governance and the missing physical map
• Jeddah Port handled a record 540,107 TEU, but most was not transshipment
• Riyadh Air’s August ledger separates routes, aircraft and operational evidence

Sources

1. [S1] Transport General Authority quarterly figures compiled from official releases by Arab News, “Saudi rail passenger traffic jumps 16% in first half of 2026,” 11 August 2026. https://www.arabnews.com/node/2654162/amp
2. [S2] Saudi Press Agency/Transport General Authority, “Saudi Trains Carry Over 45 Million Passengers in Q1 2026,” 30 April 2026. https://www.spa.gov.sa/en/N2574767
3. [S3] Saudi Press Agency/Transport General Authority, “Transport Authority Reports Record Train Passenger Figures in Q2 2025,” 24 July 2025. https://www.spa.gov.sa/N2366493
4. [S4] Saudi Press Agency/Royal Commission for Riyadh City, “Riyadh Metro passes 100 million passengers in less than nine months,” 26 August 2025. https://www.spa.gov.sa/fr/N2385105
5. [S5] Royal Commission for Riyadh City, Riyadh City Voluntary Local Review 2024, published 2025. https://www.rcrc.gov.sa/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Riyadh-Citys-Voluntary-Local-Review-VLR-2024-1.pdf
6. [S6] Saudi Press Agency/Transport General Authority, “More than 30.6 million passengers used public buses in Q1 2026,” 23 April 2026. https://www.spa.gov.sa/N2569662
7. [S7] Royal Commission for Riyadh City, “RCRC launches first phase of Riyadh Bus service,” 20 March 2023. https://www.rcrc.gov.sa/rcrc-announces-launch-of-first-phase-of-riyadh-bus-service-covering-15-routes-ar/
8. [S8] Royal Commission for Riyadh City, “RCRC launches fourth group of ring-road and major-road projects,” 24 June 2026. https://www.rcrc.gov.sa/237440/