City number three. Same rules as before: GHSL 2025 population (15.7 million people in a 50 × 44 km box), 23 food hotspots, 6 independent growths of 50,000 agents, and we count the people living within 800 m of a line. The real network is Namma Metro's three open lines (Purple, Green and Yellow: 83 stations, 96 km officially). Wikidata already had the Yellow Line, which opened in August 2025. The elevated Pink Line section (Kalena Agrahara to Tavarekere) passed its safety inspection in October 2026 but hasn't opened to passengers yet, so we left it out. Bengaluru has no suburban rail running yet, and no sea, so nothing blocks the slime here. Pick the Bengaluru tab in the live sim above.
| Measure | Slime mold | Namma Metro |
|---|---|---|
| Network length | 151 km | 85 km (straight lines) |
| People within 800 m of a line | 3.88 million (25%) | 2.99 million (19%) |
| People within 800 m, per km of line | 25,700 | 35,000 |
| Same length (~85 km): people within 800 m | 2.81 million (84 km) | 2.99 million (85 km) |
| Share of its network within 1 km of the other's | 20% | 35% |
Trim the slime to the metro's length and the metro still wins, but only by about 6%: the closest of our three cities. The two networks barely agree, though. Only a fifth of the slime runs within 1 km of a metro line. The slime piles into the dense north and north-west (RT Nagar, Hebbal, Mathikere, Yelahanka) and loops a ring through the east, while the real metro is a cross with a south-east spur to Electronic City. The slime only counts where people sleep. The metro also has to reach where they work, and Bengaluru's tech parks are exactly the places the slime ignores.
Three cities so far: per km of line, the real network beats the slime in Delhi (33,300 vs 29,900) and Bengaluru (35,000 vs 25,700). Mumbai is the exception: there the slime wins per km (56,600 vs 41,100) but loses on total reach.
The biggest crowds more than 2 km from any open line, checked against the news. All four are already being built or planned:
| Hotspot (approx. centre) | People within 3 km | To nearest open line | Reality check |
|---|---|---|---|
| RT Nagar / Hebbal–Nagawara belt | 1,420,000 | 5.6 km | Under construction Pink Line underground (Dairy Circle–Nagawara), opening targeted Mar–May 2027 (Mint), plus Blue Line stations at Veerannapalya and Kempapura, end-2027 to 2028 (Bengaluru Live). |
| Mathikere / BEL Circle | 1,180,000 | 2.4 km | Approved, not started Phase 3 Orange Line (JP Nagar 4th Phase–Kempapura) has a BEL Circle station, but it is still at the land-acquisition stage (The Hindu, Oct 2026). |
| Yelahanka | 574,000 | 9.1 km | Under construction Blue Line to the airport via Yelahanka, slipping past 2027 (DH). |
| Nelamangala | 116,000 | 9.8 km | Proposal only The Madavara–Tumakuru metro plan (via Nelamangala) is waiting for Cabinet approval (The Hindu). |
Bengaluru caveats. Station data is a Wikidata snapshot taken on 25 Oct 2026 (only stations marked "in use"), and lines are drawn as straight links between stations, so we measure 85 km against the official 96 km. The Pink Line's elevated section will add 7.5 km on Bannerghatta Road once it opens, but it doesn't touch any of the four gaps above. We count residents only, not jobs or trips. Lakes and terrain aren't modelled.
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