Today, due to the long-term neglect of Zagreb's public transport infrastructure, existing public transport systems (tram and bus) and the independent city-suburban railway system do not meet the required levels of service. The main problems of the city’s image regarding transport, in addition to the constant inflation in the number of passenger cars, are non-compliant timetables of various public transportation systems and arbitrary price-versus realizable quality of service. At the same time, plans for the introduction of the new rail system in Zagreb's public transport have been announced for decades. Numerous proposals have been made on various track route variants, which usually predict the introduction of underground lines and links to the existing rail network (narrow gauge tram or standard gauge railway tracks). In addition, the new city Master Plan re-envisages a metro line (or "Light Rail Underground") in the city centre. This paper gives a comparison of design and exploitation parameters of urban rail concepts proposed for Zagreb in the last 20 years. The aim of the analysis was to determine whether any of these concepts meet today's requirements or weather the changes in the city’s space and transportation needs are so vast that the future development of the public rail system needs to be planned from scratch.

City of Zagreb, rail public transport, urban network development, concept variants