Metromover: fare-free driverless people mover in downtown Miami
Miami-Dade County opened this elevated people mover in April 1986 as a driverless system under automatic train control; it still runs without an onboard driver over 21 stations and three loops. Fares were scrapped in 2002 after county voters approved a half-penny transit surtax, and the ride is still free. A $153M overhaul of the 1980s wayside and control equipment, awarded in 2021, missed its May 2025 deadline — weekend closures, shuttle buses and shortened hours continue into 2026.
Live
📅 since 1986
✔ Editor-reviewed
📊 Impact
Roughly 626,400 boardings a month in 2025 — county ridership figures reported by the Miami Times — on a service that has charged nothing since 2002.
🎓 Lesson
Taking the driver out did not take the maintenance bill out. What closes this line most weekends is forty-year-old proprietary wayside and control equipment, and the county is rebuilding 27 existing cars rather than buying new ones until the track work is done.
Evidence📰 Media
Scale🏘️ District
Cost≈$153M control-system overhaul (2021 contract, not to exceed $152,920,983.22)
FundingFTA grant ($22.0M) plus Miami-Dade Charter County Transportation Surtax ($130.9M)
Sources
↗ Miami-Dade DTPW — Metromover Upgrade ProjectOperator page. Award: 'On May 4, 2021, the Miami-Dade County Board of County Commissioners adopted a Resolution to award a contract to Bombardier Transportation (Holdings) USA, Inc.' Value: 'not to exceed $152,920,983.22, consisting of $22,042,300.00 from a Federal Transit Administration (FTA) grant and $130,878,683.22 from Charter County Transportation Surtax Funds for a four-year term.' Scope covers the Automatic Train Control System, Data Transmission System with SCADA, power distribution, guideway switches and Central Control. Also: 'once the track work is completed, the system can easily accept new vehicles and DTPW will start the procurement process for new Metromover cars' — i.e. new cars are a deferred phase, not part of this contract.
↗ Miami-Dade DTPW — Metromover service pageOperator page, current status. 'The Metromover is a free elevated people mover system that operates seven days a week in the downtown Miami, Omni, and Brickell areas.' 'Metromover services 21 stations from the Financial District Station in Brickell to the School Board Station in the Omni area. The entire system is subdivided into three separate loops.' Hours '5:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week', and 'Metromover is operating a modified Inner Loop, with trains running on the same track as Brickell and Omni Loop.'
↗ Miami Times — Miami-Dade eyes replacing Metromover system amid rising costs, frequent shutdowns (27 May 2025)Carries the ridership figure and the fare history sentence-level: 'The Metromover serves roughly 626,400 riders per month, compared to 4.9 million for Metrobus, 1.3 million for Metrorail and 139,500 for special transportation services.' 'It became free after voters approved a half-penny surtax to fund expansions to Miami-Dade transit in 2002.' 'The current Metromover system, built in 1986 and expanded in 1994, suffers frequent shutdowns and relies on proprietary components that are difficult to replace.' Also reports the county cutting daily operating time by two and a half hours for the works.
↗ Miami Today — As Metromover upgrades lag, expansion plans seem stupid (7 Jan 2026)Strongest recent source on the schedule slip. Direct fetch returned HTTP 503; content verified through search-result excerpts: county commissioners 'spending an added $15.5 million in hopes work will end by 2028 or 2029', the 2021 contract having targeted a May 2025 deadline, and the stated cause 'Alstom Transport USA Inc.'s failure to meet required milestones and continued performance deficiencies'.
↗ Miami-Dade County press release — first fully upgraded Metromover vehicle delivered (2023)Confirms refurbishment rather than replacement: the delivered car 'will be used as a prototype to retrofit 26 other vehicles at DTPW's maintenance facility', and 'System upgrades will be made over 24 months' — a schedule since overtaken by events.
↗ MiamiBeacon — Metromover Inner Loop delays Saturday openings through August (2026)Currency check for 2026: 'the Inner Loop and Brickell Loop will not begin service until 2 p.m. on designated Saturdays, while the Omni Loop will open an hour later, at 3 p.m.', affecting 'at least July 25 and August 1, 2026, with additional Saturdays expected through the end of August', because 'MDT is conducting a $153 million wayside system overhaul'. Free shuttle buses substitute.
↗ Alstom — new signalling technology and other upgrades for Metromover (June 2021)Supplier press release naming the replacement control system: 'Alstom has been selected by the Miami-Dade County Department of Transportation and Public Works to provide its state-of-the-art Cityflo 650 Communications-Based Train Control (CBTC) solution for the Miami-Dade Metromover system.' Alstom's site returned HTTP 403 to direct fetch; the sentence was confirmed via search excerpt and the Mass Transit mirror of the same release. Kept out of the snippet for that reason.
↗ Metro Jacksonville archive — The Miami MetromoverTransit-history source for the opening: 'The Miami-Dade Metromover system was the first urban application of the Westinghouse Automated People Mover (APM) technology, and it originally began service to the Downtown/Inner Loop on April 17, 1986.' No source reached in this review documents onboard attendants, a period of manual operation, or an incident that put staff back on the trains; the entry therefore claims driverless operation at 1986 and today, not an explicitly unbroken record.
📎 Cite this project
1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Metromover: fare-free driverless people mover in downtown Miami” — Miami, United States. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/miami-metromover/ (last verified 2026-07-26). Data: CC BY 4.0.
The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.
🔗 Related projects
🇺🇸 Washington Metro's automatic train operation, switched off for 15 years · Washington D.C.
D.C. switched its automation off for 15 years after a 2009 crash; Miami's mover opened driverless in 1986 and still runs that way.
🇺🇸 Muni Metro Advanced Train Control System & Its Replacement · San Francisco
Both are ripping out 1980s train control: San Francisco signed a 2025 contract running to 2034; Miami's $153M rebuild missed May 2025.
🇺🇸 EASY Card, contactless bank cards and a daily fare cap · Miami
The county's other fare story: buses and rail cap a day at $5.65, while this line has charged nothing since a 2002 surtax vote.
🇪🇪 Free Public Transport for Registered Residents · Tallinn
Tallinn had to build an identity check to give free rides away; Miami's mover just stopped charging everyone in 2002.
→ Open this project in the interactive atlas · → 🚲 Mobility category · 🚩 Report an error