The concept of sustainable transportation. Tram transport in selected cities in Central and Western Europe

The purpose of the paper is to attempt to show that tram transportation fulfills the postulates of sustainable transportation to a greater extent than other means of municipal transportation. Its potential is connected with its small impact on the natural environment, high accessibility also for passengers with limited mobility and – last but not least – the opportunity to create urban space.

The paper analyzes tram investment completed after the year 2000 in two cities that already had this means of municipal transportation – the Polish city of Kraków and the Aystrian city of Linz – as well as two tram networks constructed from scratch, located in the Italian city of Florence and the French city of Nice. The first two cities have built several new tram lines, mainly connecting housing estates with city centers. In both cases, tunnel sections under a main railway station had to be opened. The latter two cities, by contrast, are examples of a return of trams to the streets from which they were removed in the 1950s.

These major investments show that the advantages of trams – especially in the context of their considerably smaller negative environmental impact and overall greater effectiveness compared with buses – are quite well known today to decision makers in different parts of Europe. However, knowledge on the opportunities that trams provide in order to help create urban space seems to be less widespread. What is more, the potential of trams to help create a sustainable municipal transportation system is not fully realized either. This fact applies in particular to Kraków where investment in the tram system is realized together with a large scale extension of the city’s road network. However, even the new tram systems of Florence and Nice do not seem to utilize all the opportunities that municipal tram transportation yields to help create a really sustainable transportation system in a so-called sustainable city.

The purpose of the paper is to attempt to show that tram transportation fulfills the postulates of sustainable transportation to a greater extent than other means of municipal transportation. Its potential is connected with its small impact on the natural environment, high accessibility also for passengers with limited mobility and – last but not least – the opportunity to create urban space.

The paper analyzes tram investment completed after the year 2000 in two cities that already had this means of municipal transportation – the Polish city of Kraków and the Aystrian city of Linz – as well as two tram networks constructed from scratch, located in the Italian city of Florence and the French city of Nice. The first two cities have built several new tram lines, mainly connecting housing estates with city centers. In both cases, tunnel sections under a main railway station had to be opened. The latter two cities, by contrast, are examples of a return of trams to the streets from which they were removed in the 1950s.

These major investments show that the advantages of trams – especially in the context of their considerably smaller negative environmental impact and overall greater effectiveness compared with buses – are quite well known today to decision makers in different parts of Europe. However, knowledge on the opportunities that trams provide in order to help create urban space seems to be less widespread. What is more, the potential of trams to help create a sustainable municipal transportation system is not fully realized either. This fact applies in particular to Kraków where investment in the tram system is realized together with a large scale extension of the city’s road network. However, even the new tram systems of Florence and Nice do not seem to utilize all the opportunities that municipal tram transportation yields to help create a really sustainable transportation system in a so-called sustainable city.