交通 · JIĀOTŌNG
The largest metro network on earth, three ways to pay for it, and last trains around 22:00 — hours before Shanghai stops eating.
Shanghai's metro runs to something over twenty lines and more than eight hundred kilometres of route, which makes it the largest urban rail network in the world. It is clean, it is signed in English throughout, trains come every few minutes, and it will take you to almost everything on this site.
Services stop somewhere between roughly 22:00 and 23:00, depending on the line and the direction. That is hours earlier than Tokyo, Seoul or London, and it is the single thing that most often strands a visitor here — because the restaurants, bars and streets are still busy when the trains have gone.
Each platform posts its own last departure. Look at it at the start of the evening, not at the end.
The fallback is a taxi, and after the metro closes on a Friday in a nightlife district that means an app rather than the kerb.
Three ways, and the middle one is the trap:
⚠️ You must tap or scan out as well as in. Fares are distance-based.
Taxis are metered, plentiful and cheap by international standards. ⚠️ But drivers very often speak no English, and street-hailing after dark can be genuinely difficult. The answer both problems is DiDi, which has an English interface, holds the destination in Chinese so nothing is lost in translation, and pays through the app.
⛔ Take licensed taxis from official ranks at airports and stations. The people approaching you inside the terminal are not them.
The magnetic-levitation line runs from Pudong Airport to Longyang Road at up to 430 km/h and covers the distance in around seven minutes. ⚠️ It does not go to the centre — you change to the metro at the far end — so it saves less time than the speed suggests. Ride it once because it is remarkable; use metro line 2 or a taxi when you actually have luggage and a hotel.
The old centre, the Bund and the former French Concession are all genuinely walkable and the Concession is one of the best walking districts in Asia. ⚠️ Shared bicycles are everywhere and are unlocked through — again — an app; the bike lanes are wide, busy, and shared with silent electric scooters coming from both directions.
The Shanghai Metro stops running years earlier than the city itself does. Most lines close between roughly 22:00 and 23:00 — hours before restaurants shut, and far earlier than the subways in Tokyo or Seoul. The exact minute depends on the line, the direction, and which station a rider is standing in. This article gives … Read more
