and the suburban railway service
FL lines. The Metropolitan City of Rome Capital is the centre of a radial network of roads that roughly follow the lines of the ancient Roman roads which began at the
Capitoline Hill and connected Rome with its empire. Today Rome is circled, at a distance of about from the Capitol, by the ring-road (the
Grande Raccordo Anulare or GRA). Due to its location in the centre of the Italian peninsula, Rome is the principal railway node for central Italy. Rome's main railway station,
Termini, is one of the largest railway stations in Europe and the most heavily used in Italy, with around 400 thousand travellers passing through every day. The second-largest station in the city,
Roma Tiburtina, has been redeveloped as a
high-speed rail terminus. Rome is served by three airports. The intercontinental
Leonardo da Vinci International Airport is Italy's chief airport, is located within the nearby
Fiumicino, south-west of Rome. The older
Rome Ciampino Airport is a joint civilian and military airport. It is commonly referred to as "Ciampino Airport", as it is located beside
Ciampino, south-east of Rome. A third airport, the
Rome Urbe Airport, is a small, low-traffic airport serving general aviTion and private planes located about north of the city centre, which handles most helicopter and private flights. The city has its own quarter on the Mediterranean Sea (
Lido di Ostia), equipped with a
tourist port and a small channel-harbour for fisher boats. The main harbour which serves Rome is the
Port of Civitavecchia, located about northwest of the city, part of the "
Motorways of the Sea", it is linked to several Mediterranean ports and is one of the
busiest cruise ports in the world. A 3-line metro system called the
Metropolitana operates in the Metropolitan City of Rome. Construction on the first branch started in the 1930s. The line had been planned to quickly connect the
main railway station with the newly planned E42 area in the southern suburbs, where the 1942
World Fair was supposed to be held. The event never took place because of war, but the area was later partly redesigned and renamed
EUR (Esposizione Universale di Roma: Rome Universal Exhibition) in the 1950s to serve as a modern business district. The line was finally opened in 1955, and it is now the south part of the B Line. The
A line opened in 1980 from Ottaviano to Anagnina stations, later extended in stages (1999–2000) to Battistini. In the 1990s, an extension of the
B line was opened from Termini to Rebibbia. This underground network is generally reliable (although it may become very congested at peak times and during events, especially the A line) as it is relatively short. The A and B lines intersect at Roma Termini station. A new branch of the B line (B1) opened on 13 June 2012 after an estimated building cost of €500 million. B1 connects to line B at Piazza Bologna and has four stations over a distance of . A third line, the
C line, is under construction with an estimated cost of €3 billion and will have 30 stations over a distance of . It will partly replace the existing
Termini-Pantano rail line. It will feature full automated, driverless trains. The first section with 15 stations connecting Pantano with the quarter of Centocelle in the eastern part of the city, opened on 9 November 2014. The end of the work was scheduled in 2015, but archaeological findings often delay underground construction work. A fourth line, D line, is also planned. It will have 22 stations over a distance of . ==Gallery==