Tyne and Wear Metro - Overview

Overview

The Metro is usually described as Britain's first modern light rail system. It can be considered a hybrid system, displaying elements of light rail, heavy underground metro, and longer-distance, higher speed suburban and interurban railway systems.

Metro is an 'open access' network with no fixed ticket controls. Despite this, the Tyne and Wear Metro has a higher level of passenger income per year (£40 million in 2009/2010) than any other light rail system outside London. Checks are made by roving patrols of inspectors. Ticket gates are due to be re-installed at several main stations during 2011, after an upgrade of the system's ticket machines. The original gates, which were found on every station when the system was opened, were removed in the late 80s because of safety concerns. They remain in place at several key stations to assist with crowd control.

Many stations throughout the system feature commissioned works by various artists. Examples include the following:

• A large-scale public artwork by Nayan Kulkarni, Nocturne, consisting of a moving kaleidoscope of light travelling along the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which carries the Metro between Newcastle and Gateshead, was inaugurated in April 2007.

• Wallsend station is probably the only public facility in Britain in which the signage is in Latin. Artist Michael Pinsky was commissioned to create the bilingual signs and a map of Hadrian's Wall in the style of the Metro map to commemorate the area's Roman heritage and its location near the Segedunum Roman fort at the end of the wall. The project was part of Newcastle and Gateshead's unsuccessful joint bid to become European Capital of Culture in 2008.

Metro has a distinctive design and corporate identity, to distinguish itself from the decrepit rail system it replaced and to match the livery of the buses then in use. The Calvert typeface, used for signage and in printed materials, was designed specifically for the Metro by Margaret Calvert. The corporate identity was revised in 1998, de-emphasising the Calvert font, and adding the word Metro to its M logo. A further revision in 2008, and subsequently rolled-out, re-emphasises the Calvert font, most obviously in posters and in signage at the refurbished Haymarket station in the centre of Newcastle.

Metro was the first underground train network in the UK to install repeaters allowing customers to use their mobile phone in tunnels, an achievement that is being closely watched by the London Underground.

Metro does not allow the carriage of standard bicycles, though there are storage lockers for these at some stations. Only small folding bicycles are permitted on the Metro, and technically only Nexus approved models of folding bikes are permitted. Photography is allowed on Metro but written permission is required. Furthermore, Nexus reserve the right to, and have often insisted upon, chaperone any filming or photography taking place on the network. This rule however does not apply to Sunderland station because of its being owned by Network Rail and managed by Northern Rail.

Smoking has been forbidden since opening; this was one of the first comprehensive smoking bans.