Shanghai has an extensive public transportation system, largely based on buses, and a rapidly expanding metro system. For a city of Shanghai's size, road traffic is fairly smooth and convenient.

Shanghai has the world's most extensive bus system with nearly one thousand bus lines. The Shanghai Metro (subway and elevated light rail) has five lines (numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) at present. According to the development schedule of the municipal government, by the year 2010, another 8 lines will be built in Shanghai. Bus and metro fares run from ¥1 to ¥4 depending on distance (or between 12 to 50 US cents). Taxis in Shanghai are plentiful and market competition has driven taxi fare down to affordable prices for the average resident (¥11 or a little over one US dollar for 3 km).

Shanghai has two airports: Hongqiao and Pudong International, which has the second highest (combined) traffic in China, following Hong Kong International Airport. In cooperation with the Shanghai municipality and the Shanghai Maglev Transportation Development Co. (SMT), German Transrapid constructed the first commercial maglev railway in the world in 2002, from Shanghai's Longyang Road subway station to Pudong International Airport. Commercial operation started in 2003. The 30 km trip takes 7 minutes and 21 seconds and reaches a maximum speed of 431 km/h (267.8 miles per hour).

Transrapid maglev trainTwo railways intersect in Shanghai: Jinghu Railway (Beijing-Shanghai) Railway passing through Nanjing, and Shanghai-Hangzhou Railway. Shanghai has two main railway stations, Shanghai Railway Station and Shanghai South Railway Station. A maglev train route to Hangzhou (Shanghai-Hangzhou Maglev Train ) will begin construction in 2006 and is planned to be finished in 2008. A high-speed railroad to Beijing is also in the works. More than six national expressways from Beijing and from the region around Shanghai connect to the city. Shanghai itself has six toll-free elevated expressways (skyways) in the urban core and 18 municipal expressways. There are ambitious plans to build expressways connecting Shanghai's Chongming Island with the urban core.

Within Shanghai itself, there are elevated roads, which appear expressway-like in road conditions (direction-separated lanes). Tunnels and bridges are used to link Puxi to Pudong.

Inside a Shanghai subway car

Transrapid maglev train