Milan S Lines

The Milan S Lines constitute the commuter rail system serving the metropolitan area of Milan, Italy. The system comprises 12 lines serving 124 stations, for a total length of 403 km. There are 415 trains per day with a daily ridership of about 230,000.

The core of the system is the Passante, an underground railway running through the city approximately from the north-west to the south-east. Several lines share this track, making the service in the city centre comparable to a metro line or S-Bahn system.

The service timetable is based on a clock-face scheduling. Although operated by different companies, the Milan Metro and the suburban rail service have integrated tickets.

Network
Lines in darker background run through the Milan Passante railway. Lines which share same tracks for the majority of the route are generally identified by similar colors. Trains run every 30 minutes in each line (except S12), generally from 5/6 am to 10 pm or half past midnight, depending on the line.

Integrated ticketing
An integrated ticket is used inside the Milan urban area for bus, tram and metro lines, as well as the suburban railway. The urban single journey ticket costs €2.00. Other tickets are available, including 24h and 48h tickets and night ticket. Regional train fares apply outside the urban limit.

Between 2004 and 2007 ATM introduced Itinero smartcard, a proximity card which can be charged with season tickets, replacing paper for this type of tickets in the Milan area. At the beginning of 2010, a new smartcard, RicaricaMi, was introduced. The new card can be charged up with credit and can be used for travel in place of magnetic paper tickets, on the model of London's Oyster card. These cards are also valid on the suburban railway lines.

The suburban railways can be accessed also with the regional integrated ticket "Io viaggio ovunque in Lombardia", as 1 to 7 days tickets or more long subscription with smartcard "Io Viaggio".

Since 1 October 2019, in provinces that include only municipalities where new STIBM tariff system (introduced on 15 July 2019) pricing is active, IVOP titles have been abolished.

Since 9 January 2023 the standard Mi1-Mi3 ticked price has been raised from 2.00€ to 2.20€ (and consequently every other STIBM ticket).

Rolling stock
Several train classes are operated on the network: Treno ad alta frequentazione (TAF) class trains, that were introduced since the end of the 1990s and are mostly unused as of 2024; Treno Servizio Regionale (TSR) class trains introduced since 2007 to replace older rolling stock; Caravaggio introduced since 2019 and mainly used on the S11 line; ATR115 and ATR125 (based on the Stadler FLIRT platform) only used on the S7 line; and the E.464 locomotive with "Carrozza vicinale a piano ribassato" used on the S9 and S8.

History
Full service started on 12 December 2004 with the completion of the Passante and the activation of the first 8 lines. However, a shuttle service was running since 1997 in the partially completed track.

Line S4 was extended from Seveso to Camnago on 19 February 2006. The new Romolo station on line S9 was opened 3 months later. Lines S1, S2, S6 and S10 were extended from Porta Vittoria to the new station of Rogoredo on 15 June 2008.

Two new stations, Pregnana Milanese and Rho Fiera Milano were opened in 2009. Line S8 and S11 began operation at the end of the same year, while the service was extended to reach Lodi and Treviglio.

On 26 March 2011, with the completion of the Milan Metro Line 3 north extension, a new station, Affori, was opened in place of the old one, to be an interchange with the Metro. On 1 May 2011 a new company, Trenord, was created from the joining of the two main regional train operators in Lombardy, Trenitalia and LeNord. Trenord is since then the operator of most of suburban lines.

Between 2011 and 2015 (pre EXPO upgrades to the service) the line S9 has been prolonged to Albairate-Vermezzo to the south and to Saronno to the north with the consequent opening of 6 new stations, S10 was prolonged to Pavia and renamed S13 and the opening of Pieve Emanuele station, many services were upgraded to 30min frequencies, Milano Bruzzano station was opened and the new S7 line to Lecco was created.

For the 2015 EXPO exposition S11 was prolonged to Rho (thus serving the renamed Rho Fiera EXPO Milano 2015 station), 2 more stations were activated even though not related to the event, a new S14 line was activated between Rho and Milano Rogoredo stations and the consequently shut down at the end of the exposition.

In the following the EXPO event (that bought international attention to the city) a new S12 was created to help with crowding during rush hours (8 runs a day) and 2 stations were suppressed (even though every diagram says they're temporarily closed).

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic many serviced had their frequencies reduced and, for a while S3 had no runs between 9 a.m. and 10 p.m. and S2 and S12 were shut down. With time everything got back to normal except S12 which was reactivated only at the end of August 2023 and same goes for the half an hour frequency for the S9 line. In 2022 the new station Milano Tibaldi, near Bocconi University was activated as a first station for a circle line project.

Planned extensions

 * line S2: extension from Milano Rogoredo to Pieve Emanuele.
 * line S8: extension from Milano Porta Garibaldi to Milano Bovisa.
 * line S9: extension from Saronno to Busto Arsizio in the north, shortening the route in the south from Albairate-Vermezzo to Milano San Cristoforo, where it would be substituted with S16.

At least five new lines are expected to enter service in the next few years, with some of them needing to wait for the completion of new infrastructural projects in order to be activated, such as the quad-tracking of the currently double-tracked Rho-Parabiago section on the Milan-Gallarate railway: Several new stations are also planned to be built to better serve the Milan urban area, as detailed by the Plan for Sustainable Urban transportation (or PUMS in Italian) for the municipality of Milan. Some of them are:
 * line S14: Magenta - Milano Rogoredo.
 * line S15: Parabiago - Milano Rogoredo.
 * line S16: Abbiategrasso - Lambrate - Rho.
 * line S17: Garbagnate - Garbagnate Ovest - Lainate.
 * line S18: Milano Bovisa - Milano Porta Garibaldi - Carnate Usmate - Orio al Serio.


 * Milano Canottieri
 * Milano Dergano
 * Milano Istria
 * Milano Zama
 * Milano Puglie