Time for Trams

How to build trams in the UK and get Britain moving

The ‘Back on Track’ report from Create Streets and Britain Remade explores why and how we can make it quicker, cheaper and easier to build trams and get Britain moving sustainably.

Using Leeds as a case study, the report demonstrates how making it easier to get around towns and cities by public transport and creating new homes along these routes is critical to creating happier, healthier and greener places.

Trams are experiencing a renaissance around the world, with 21 French cities building a tramway this century. In Germany, 60 German cities now have a tram. China has built 35 tramlines since 2010 and even America has 27 light rail systems, the larger counterpart to trams. 

Britain has fallen behind. Only seven British cities have a tram, which means that the UK is missing out on the many benefits that tramways bring.

Nicholas Boys Smith, founding chairman of Create Streets, said: '"t’s time for trams. We took a historic wrong turn when we ripped up our tram system in the 1950s undermining the fundamental ease of movement and interaction for business and pleasure which underpins all successful places. Europe and the US have realised this. Now we need to as well.

If we are to decarbonise transport, cut air pollution, and boost urban productivity and growth then reliable and fast public transport is critical. We have unintentionally made it very expensive to create new trams. British trams are two and a half times more expensive than French trams per mile and almost three times as expensive as German trams.

"This is due to details in the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991, The Streets Works (Sharing of Costs of Works) Regulation 2000 and the Transport and Works Act 1992. It’s time to fix that. The good news is that we know how. This report sets out in detail how. I hope that it will help unlock the new homes, increased productivity and sustainable growth patterns that the country desperately needs."

The case for trams

Trams have a higher capacity, lower emissions, and better ride quality than either cars or buses. A single lane of a city street could carry 1,500 people per hour in cars, 8,000 people in buses, or up to 22,000 people if it was used as a tramway. 

With more doors, longer carriages, larger stops, and signal priority, trams can easily move thousands of people along a busy corridor in Britain’s cities. 

Trams can combine the capacity advantages of trains with the immediacy and lower cost of buses.

Trams lower emissions by encouraging motorists to switch to public transport for some or all of their journey, with 30% of Nottingham tram users switching from their car to public transport. 

The tram in Tours, France has led to 25,000 fewer cars on the city’s streets and an annual 40,000 tonne reduction in CO2 emissions. Trams do not produce tailpipe emissions, unlike diesel buses, and only produce negligible particulate emissions, unlike buses’ rubber tyres.

To help encourage standardisation and develop a pipeline of projects, the report suggest sthat:

• The Department for Transport (DfT) should create a specialist delivery unit responsible for trams, metro and light rail within its new public transport directorship.

• This team should work with industry bodies to develop a national tram standard modelled after the German common set of standards, their VDV Blue Books and BOStrab.

• This unit should encourage replicable and low cost engineering solutions and capture lessons where trams were delivered cheaply both in the UK and abroad, as well as advocate for cheaper, simpler tram stop designs.

• Additionally, the Competition and Markets Authority should issue guidance explicitly allowing cooperation of tram promoters to jointly procure new tram vehicles.