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 Zagreb Electric Tram, 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 has two unimodal long distance terminals, one for railways (Zagreb Glavni kolodvor) and the second one for buses (Zagreb Bus Station), both situated in the city centre.[3]
Marin Držić and Slavonska Avenues interchange (so-called "Petlja")Traffic on Marin Držić Avenue approaching rush hour
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 (11mi)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.[4] 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.[5] In 1990 there were 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.[4] The city, nonetheless, has more parking spaces per capita in the city center than Stockholm, Amsterdam and Vienna; however, it lacks a developed park and ride system.[5] 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, thus reducing the load of vehicles and subsequent traffic congestion which would ensue due to roadworks.[6]
Due to years of disrepair, the Adriatic Bridge suffered damage in the 2020 Zagreb earthquake, and was repaired in 2024. Works are planned to start on the reconstruction of the Liberty Bridge, built in 1959,[7] and the Youth Bridge, built in 1974.[8] Zagreb features six road bridges across the Sava river, the newest being the Homeland Bridge.[9] Zagreb road bridges are 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. Zagreb mayor Tomislav Tomašević 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]
Name
Year finished
Type
Road that goes over
Other information
Road bridges
Podsused Bridge
1982
Two-lane road bridge with a commuter train line (not yet completed)
Samoborska Road
Connects Zagreb to its close suburbs by a road to Samobor, the fastest route to Bestovje, Sveta Nedelja, and Strmec.
Four-lane road bridge (also carries two bicycle and two pedestrian lanes; has space reserved for tram tracks)
Radnička (Workers') Road
This bridge is the last bridge built on the Sava river to date; it links Peščenica via Radnička street to the Zagreb bypass at Kosnica. It is planned to continue towards Zagreb Airport at Pleso and Velika Gorica, and on to state road D31 going to the south.
Railway bridges
Hendrix Bridge
1939
Two-way railway bridge
–
The first bridge on that location was built in 1862 and was later replaced. It got its name after a graffiti saying "Hendrix", referring to Jimi Hendrix, kept reappearing on the bridge despite the authorities removing it.
The official name at the time of building was New Sava Bridge, but it is the oldest still standing bridge over Sava. It was pedestrianized after the Adriatic Bridge was opened.
Taxicabs
The light sign of a Zagreb taxicab
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] The taxi market has been liberalized in early 2018,[15] and numerous transport companies (including Uber) have been allowed to enter the market. Despite this liberalization, taxi prices were prevented from increasing too much via legislation that capped them on one tenth of the average monthly salary.[16]
Mass transit in Zagreb is managed by the public company Zagreb Electric Tram. ZET's trams used to span the entire city, but due to only two expansions (the Dubec and Prečko routes) in the 21st century, tram infrastructure did not keep up with the city growth. However, a bus network supplements the tram and services a large part of the Zagreb metropolitan area, as well as nearby towns. The Zagreb Cable Car connects the Gračani neighborhood and the tram line 15 terminal with the highest peak of the 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 citizens preferring to use cars instead of riding on the public transit.[5] In 2023, public procurement procedure started for building additional tram lines in Zagreb, specifically connecting Eugen Kvaternik Square via Heinzelova Street with Žitnjak, and connecting Zapruđe with Dugave.[17] Initially, there were plans to connect the future tram railway from Savišće to the Zagreb Airport via the Homeland Bridge, but the plans were altered in favor of using the existing railway infrastructure to connect the airport with the Zagreb Main Railway Station.[18]
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.[19][20]
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 117km (73mi) of tracks through 255 stations and transporting almost 500,000 passengers per day.[21][22][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 70km/h (43mph), 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 25–50km/h (15-31mph) 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-floorTMK 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.[23]
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.[24] 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.,[25] 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 built.[26]
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 35km/h.
It has been stated that the full Metro is not worth building.[27] 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.[28] Phase 1 of the new metro was going to be 22.7km long, of which 10km 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 25km of underground and 55km 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.[28]
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.[29] Some have suggested bringing a part of the existing tram network underground.[26] 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.[30][31][32][33] Former mayor Milan Bandić has made multiple promises to build a metro,[26] 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.[34]
Water transport
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,[35] and following the last catastrophic flood in 1964, when inundation affected 60 square kilometres (23sqmi) 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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