The U5 for Hamburg

More than 100 years ago, the ring line, today’s U3, set brand new standards for people’s mobility in Hamburg. Before that the dock workers living in neighbourhoods like Barmbek had to either walk many miles to their shifts, or get there by laborious and uncomfortable means by horse-drawn cart. Back then, the arrival of an underground line suddenly felt like rapid and profound progress. Now it’s time once again for a major step forward in Hamburg's mobility story. 

One of the most modern underground lines in Europe 

HOCHBAHN will set new standards in terms of service, comfort and convenience with the U5, which is set to be one of the most state-of-the-art underground lines in Europe. Fully automated, it will be able to run at 90-second intervals at peak times – meaning “on demand”. The U5 will be geared to the people, rather than the other way around, as has always been the case. It will set the course for the future, and introduce a system for many generations to come. 

What route will the U5 take? 

Around 270,000 passengers will use the U5 every day. From east to west across the city, it will connect important locations all along its route: starting in Bramfeld and Steilshoop, it will travel via City Nord (30,000 jobs) to Winterhude, Uhlenhorst, St. Georg and on to the main station, through the city centre to the university (43,000 students), on to Hoheluft and then via the University Hospital (11,000 jobs) and Siemersplatz finally to the arenas in the Volkspark in Stellingen.

The Goal: Germany's most climate-friendly underground

The U5 closes previous gaps in the network and becomes a considerably faster and environmentally friendly alternative to private cars in these new connected districts. In the future, the U5 will take Hamburg on a route of about 24 kilometres, completely free of emissions and powered by 100 percent green electricity.

In order to make Hamburg's mobility climate friendly, we do not start with the operation of the U5, but already with the planning and construction. To reduce CO₂ emissions during construction, we have developed a reduction strategy based on two pillars. The first pillar comprises the optimization in CO₂-reduction of all planning services, the second the CO₂ minimization in the construction of the U5 on site.

Because: If construction were to continue as before, CO₂ emissions would amount to a total of about 2.7 million tons. Thanks to optimized planning  under CO₂ aspects and the sustainable solutions already available today in material choice and processes on site, as well as the expected technological developments in the cement and steel industries, the CO₂ emissions generated by the construction of the U5 can be reduced by 70 percent to about 850,000 tons. In this way, we are already setting new standards during construction and have set ourselves the goal of building the most climate-friendly underground in Germany.

Here you can download the reduction strategy:

U5 Roadmap Summary  - (pdf, 1,2 MB)

You’d like to find out more? Everything you need to know about the U5 can be found (in German) at schneller-durch-hamburg.de – along with detailed information about all projects relating to the expansion of the U-Bahn network in Hamburg.