Please ensure you've read our speedrunning rules page first - your question may be answered there.
My name is already on your leaderboards! How do I link those runs to my account?
Please contact us via Discord or email and we'll set it up!
What methods of transportation are allowed?
Allowed methods of transportation include walking, running, buses, cable cars, ferries, streetcars, shuttles, trains, elevators, escalators, travelators, commercial flights, funiculars, piggyback rides, wheelchairs, and mobility scooters.
Disallowed methods of transportation include bicycles (including bikeshare services), scooters, e-scooters, roller blades, skateboards, hoverboards, private cars, motorcycles, mopeds, jetskis, kayaks, innertubes, canoes, sailboats, yachts, cargo ships, fishing vessels, charter boats, other private watercraft, rickshaws, ride share services, taxis, paratransit, microtransit/dial-a-ride, charter buses, private aircraft, charter flights, and unicycles.
This list is not exhaustive. Please contact us if you have any questions.
And yes, we have to say everything. Is it silly? A little.
What transit systems can I speedrun?
You can run anything rail-based (metros, trams, light rail, commuter/regional rail, etc.) that has more than one line or service. In other words, if you can visit every station by staying on the same vehicle the whole way through, it's not allowed.
Can I speedrun a bus system?
We normally only entertain runs for rail-based systems. However, if stops are more well-defined on a map, as is common with networks that fit under the broader umbrella of "bus rapid transit (BRT)," then we'll be more likely to consider it. Note that since bus speedruns are generally not as popular as rail speedruns, the leaderboard may be discontinued if left with a singular submission for an extended period of time.
How do I start a new category?
The most basic category of transit speedrunning is to visit every station on a specified rail network, which we refer to simply as "All Stops." If you have a run in a city or network that's new to us but fits the basic All Stops definition, feel free to submit it and we'll gladly create a new leaderboard page.
Please reach out to TransitRuns staff if you have a run with combined systems (e.g. bus and rail, or multiple different rail operators), or a run with specific requirements (e.g. our "DC Only" category for the Washington Metro in which you only need to go to the stations in the District of Columbia). These runs are less popular, but we want to make sure as many of these are recognized as possible. Guidelines for new categories are to make them have simple additional criteria and possible to complete in a reasonable amount of time. New submitted categories will be added to our full leaderboards once multiple runners have attempted the category.
Why don't you allow biking?
This was a difficult decision for us to make, but we believe that biking between stations presents an access barrier. Some places have publicly available bikeshare, but many others don't and thus could give someone who owns a bike an unfair advantage. Physical ability and road safety also come into play; we don't want cases where a run is only possible by biking at an excessively high speed.
Transit speedrunning is fundamentally about how fast you can navigate public transit which has a fixed route and speed. We believe that transit speedrunning should celebrate the ingenuity of route planning, rather than athletic prowess. Meanwhile, the speed of biking and other similar micromobility depends solely on the user, which isn't aligned with what we consider to be good competitive spirit.
If you don't allow biking, then why isn't running banned too?
Also not a simple decision. However, travelling on foot between stations is a more regularly performed thing, and sometimes actively encouraged by transit agencies that provide free out-of-station interchanges with nearby stations. Do note that we may choose to reject a run where someone travelled a long distance on foot if we find the speed required to do so to be prohibitive. We had considered applying a hard limit on how far you can travel on foot at a time, but that felt needlessly petty.
Why is the time on your leaderboard different to the time the runner claimed to get on their video?
We will often "retime" submissions to fit with our rules of timing, in order to maintain consistency. This means that time starts when the doors close at the first stop, and stops when the doors open at the last stop. In cases where a stopwatch is not used or footage of the stopwatch starting and stopping is not shown, we will have to approximate the run time by placing an "upper bound" on how long we think it could have taken. This usually means taking the elapsed time in hours and minutes between the start and end, and adding 59 seconds. So if you want your run to be an epic video production, that would be quite lovely but please get your timing right!
Note that runs before our site launched (August 2025) won't be retimed if they aren't video based. It's a bit of a grey area, but it's unfair on those runners to retroactively impose filming standards on them when they weren't filming anyway.
Will the leaderboards reset when new stations open?
Yes, we will, as this has been the precedent for decades on every transit system that has a speedrunning community. Runs before a reset will be kept on the leaderboard for archival purposes. To see old runs, go to the historical leaderboards tab of the category and select the appropriate period.
What is an "outdated" run?
The most common reason that a run gets marked as outdated is that all the runners have since gone on to achieve better times.
What would be considered Any% and 100%?
While common terms in video game speedrunning, they don't really map neatly onto real life, so we do not use them.
Who gets the credit if multiple people participate in a run?
Participation credit for runs is given to anyone who has been present for the entire run. No exceptions.
What did somebody once tell me?
The world is gonna roll you!