Santiago Metro Automation: Two Cabless Lines and CBTC on the Rest
Line 6 opened on 2 November 2017 and Line 3 on 22 January 2019 as unattended lines, and the label has held: the CAF AS-2014 trains built for them have no driver's cab, only a concealed console for taking a train over by hand when something fails. Thales supplied SelTrac communications-based train control across both lines, 37 km, 28 stations and 37 trains, and describes it as running in fully driverless mode, GoA4, designed for a 90-second headway behind platform screen doors. Metro's own expansion engineering manager called the pair "Conduccion sin Operador" ten months before Line 6 opened, and a Chilean outlet reported in 2019 that the driver had been replaced by a control room passengers never see, at a cost the union put at about 150 jobs per new line. The older lines still carry drivers. Line 1 was retrofitted with Alstom's Urbalis CBTC under a 2010 contract meant to cut the headway from 105 to 80 seconds, a capacity upgrade rather than a step towards running without staff. Line 7, 39% built by mid-2026, will bring Alstom trains and Urbalis with driverless operation. The operator is Empresa de Transporte de Pasajeros Metro S.A., owned by the Chilean state, not by the comunas its network crosses.
Thales puts the two automated lines at 37 km, 28 stations and 37 trains running SelTrac CBTC in fully driverless mode (GoA4), with a 90-second design headway and capacity above 29,300 passengers per hour per direction. Railway Technology valued the December 2013 CAF-Thales trains-and-signalling contract at US$451.9M including 20 years of maintenance; Alstom's earlier Line 1 retrofit was reported at about US$70M, targeting a headway cut from 105 to 80 seconds and 20% more passengers per hour. Network ridership has not recovered: Metro's record 721 million trips and 2.47 million weekday trips in 2018 fell to 544.4 million and 1.84 million in 2022, and stood at 640 million and about 2.1 million in 2024, when the company's loss deepened to CLP 358 billion. Metro reported 99% compliance with its scheduled service for 2025 and said in June 2026 that demand had come close to historical levels.
🎓 Lesson
The test of a driverless claim is not the grade a supplier certifies but whether the trains were built with a cab. Santiago's were not, and the label has survived eight years. The same CBTC family went onto the older lines, which kept their drivers, because there the point was capacity, not staffing.
Evidence🏛️ Official
Scale🗺️ Regional
CostUS$451.9M (2013 CAF-Thales trains and CBTC for lines 3 and 6)
FundingChilean state through Metro S.A.
Sources
↗ Thales — Supporting the largest metro network in South America (supplier reference)The load-bearing automation sentence: lines 3 and 6, 37 km, 28 stations and 37 trains equipped with SelTrac CBTC "with a fully driverless mode of operation (GoA4)", automatic interoperability between the two lines, 90-second design headway, capacity above 29,300 passengers per hour per direction. Two direct fetches returned an empty body; the text was read from the search index and matches Thales' separate Santiago press release.
↗ Universidad de Chile, Departamento de Ingenieria Civil — Proyecto Linea 6 y 3 de Metro (19 January 2017)Fetched. The operator's own language, from Hector Gonzalez Garrido, engineering manager of Metro's expansion division, ten months before Line 6 opened: "Conduccion sin Operador, automatizando los procesos mediante la utilizacion de tecnologia de ultima generacion". Also describes front evacuation, which is only possible on a train without a cab. Does not name the CBTC supplier or a headway.
↗ Lander Simulation — Top-level training on the new driverless line of the Santiago MetroFetched. The simulator supplier that trains Metro's staff, and the source for what unattended running means here: the trains are UTO, "each UTO train has a concealed control panel to enable the train to be operated manually when necessary", and Metro has had the simulator since 2016 to train staff for lines 3 and 6, with intensive training before the Line 3 opening on 22 January 2019. It describes intervention during incidents, not a driver riding each service.
↗ Interferencia — Lineas 3 y 6 del Metro: mas maquinas, menos trabajadores (30 June 2019)Fetched. Independent Chilean outlet and the entry's counterweight: "el conductor del tren ha sido reemplazado por una sala de control invisible para los pasajeros"; union president Eric Campos puts the loss at about 150 jobs per new line; roughly 140 Metro staff work on Line 6, fewer than on older lines. Corroborates that no driver travels with the train.
↗ Railway Gazette / Metro Report — First driverless metro line in Santiago inauguratedTrade press dating the Line 6 opening to 2 November 2017 by President Bachelet, Cerrillos to Los Leones, 15.3 km underground, 10 stations, CAF-Thales trainsets, Thales CBTC designed for 90-second headways. Direct fetch returned 403; the headline, outlet and content were confirmed through search. A companion article, "Santiago opens second driverless metro line", covers Line 3.
↗ Railway Technology — CAF-Thales consortium signs $451.9m Santiago Metro contractFetched. Dates the contract to 15 December 2013 and values it at US$451.9M for lines 3 and 6, CAF supplying trains and Thales the SelTrac CBTC, with a 20-year maintenance agreement. It also quotes a throughput of about 50,000 passengers per hour, a differently defined figure from Thales' 29,300 per hour per direction; the entry uses only the Thales figure and neither is presented as the other's confirmation.
↗ Metro Magazine — Alstom to supply automatic train control to Santiago, Chile (Line 1)Source for the Line 1 retrofit: an Alstom contract of about US$70M covering design, manufacture, installation, commissioning and three years of maintenance of Urbalis CBTC, awarded in January 2010, intended to cut the interval between trains from 105 to 80 seconds and raise passengers per hour by 20%, installed without interrupting service. Direct fetch returned HTTP 429; the figures were read from the search index. No automation grade is stated, and the entry claims none for Line 1 beyond the fact that its trains keep drivers.
↗ Revista Electricidad — Metro de Santiago presenta resultados 2025 y hoja de ruta para la proxima decada (12 June 2026)Fetched. Currency check and operator-reported service figures for 2025: 99% compliance with programmed service, average wait of 1 minute 40 seconds, internal incidents down 43.5%, an investment plan of about US$1.3bn over ten years, Line 7 at 39% with more than 16 km of tunnel excavated, Line 6 extension at 36.6%, and general manager Felipe Bravo saying demand came close to historical levels. It gives no annual ridership or financial totals.
↗ El Dinamo — Las cifras de Metro de Santiago en 2024 (17 April 2025)Fetched. Press reporting of Metro's own 2024 results: 640 million trips, up 41 million (+6.8%) on 2023, 2.1 million on a working day, passenger revenue of CLP 456.411bn (+19.1%), and a loss deepening to CLP 358bn from CLP 222bn, driven by financial costs up 70.9%.
📎 Cite this project
1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Santiago Metro Automation: Two Cabless Lines and CBTC on the Rest” — Santiago, Chile. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/santiago-metro-automation/ (last verified 2026-07-26). Data: CC BY 4.0.
The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.
