page_title: North Rhine-Westphalia
section_title: Regional Rail network
hierarchical_section_title: North Rhine-Westphalia / Transport / Regional Rail network
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Einfahrt Stadtbahn der Linie U46 in den U-Bahnhof Saarlandstraße, Richtung Westfalenhallen.
context_page_description: North Rhine-Westphalia is a state of Germany. It is the most-populous of the 16 states of Germany.
  North Rhine-Westphalia is located in western Germany covering an area of 34,084 square kilometres, which makes it the fourth-largest state. Apart from the city-states it is also the most densely populated German state. NRW has a population of 17.9 million making it the largest German state by population and features 30 of the 81 German municipalities with over 100,000 inhabitants, including Cologne, the state capital Düsseldorf, Dortmund and Essen and other cities predominantly located in the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan area, the largest urban area in Germany and the third-largest on the European continent. The location of the Rhine-Ruhr at the heart of the European Blue Banana makes it well connected to other major European cities and metropolitan areas like the Randstad, the Flemish Diamond and the Frankfurt Rhine Main Region.
context_section_description: The regional rail network is organised around the main in towns in Rhein-Ruhr: Bonn, Cologne, Wuppertal, [Düsseldorf]]Essen and Dortmund. Some public transport companies in this region are run under the umbrella of the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr, which provides a uniform ticket system valid for the entire area. The Ruhr region is well-integrated into the national rail system, the Deutsche Bahn, for both passenger and goods services, each city in the region has at least one or more train stations. The bigger central stations have hourly direct connections to the bigger European cities as Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, Vienna or Zürich.
  The Rhein-Ruhr area also contains the longest tram system in the world, with tram and Stadtbahn services from Witten to Krefeld as well as the Rhine-Ruhr S-Bahn network. Originally the system was even bigger, it was possible to travel from Unna to Bad Honnef without using railway or bus services.
  As of 2012, the VRR network consists of 978 lines, of which there are: 
  in regional rail transit
  11 S-Bahn lines (see: Rhine-Ruhr S-Bahn)
  15 RegionalExpress lines (see: List of regional railway lines in North Rhine-Westphalia)
  24 RegionalBahn lines (see: List of regional railway lines in North Rhine-Westphalia)
  in local rail transit
  19 Stadtbahn light rail lines (see: Rhine-Ruhr Stadtbahn)
  45 streetcar (Straßenbahn) lines
  1 Schwebebahn line (in Wuppertal)
  2 H-Bahn peoplemover systems made up of three lines (two H-Bahn lines in Dortmund, and the Düsseldorf SkyTrain at Düsseldorf airport)
  in bus transit
  906 bus lines, including
  33 express bus lines (Schnellbus, SB)
  18 semi-fast bus lines (CityExpress, CE)
  6 trolleybus lines (in Solingen)
  15,300 km of route network (bus, light rail, and train)
  11,500 transit stops
caption: Stadtbahn in Dortmund
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