Because much of Haifa is built on top of the Carmel mountain, the Carmelit (named after this mountain) is a peculiar subway system that goes uphill - an underground funicular that works much like an elevator. This also made the Carmelit cars have a very distinctive slanted design.

The Carmelit is one of the smallest subway systems in the world, having only four cars, six stations and its tunnels totaling a mere 1800 meters. The small number of stations means that the Carmelit only serves a small part of Haifa - what used to be the important population and business centers at the time it was designed. Nowadays, the vast majority of people living in Haifa are not close to any of those stations, making it very lightly used by today's Haifa population. There have been talks of extending the Carmelit's tunnels to reach more population centers, but such an extension was never done, primarily for economic reasons. Instead, the most widely used public transportation system in Haifa are Egged buses which cover most of the city.

Despite the Carmelit being a very small subway system, it is not the smallest in the world - the Istanbul Tunel, spanning two stations and 573 meters, is smaller.

In 2004, the Carmelit is still the only subway in Israel. There are plans for a subway or light rail systems in Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem, but those are yet to materialize.

Carmelit Stations