How to run a street railway: riding trams in Central Europe

Back in October, my spouse and I had the opportunity to visit several countries in Central Europe: Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, though we spent the majority of our time in and around Vienna, as that is where my spouse attended business meetings for several days; we also took time to explore the city and surrounding areas together.

While there, I experienced how serious cities operate trams seriously. In Bratislava, I saw how a streetcar priority corridor can work in a busy downtown core. In Prague, trams made it through watermain construction zones without detours or unreliable bus shuttles. In Budapest, I rode the world’s longest trams that move more people per hour than many metro lines. In Vienna, where I spent the most time, I experienced a city where transit passengers are treated with respect, and where the trams are reliable, despite no discernable signal priority and plenty of mixed-traffic operations.

Vienna is an amazing city to visit. It’s been described to me as “what people think Paris is.” That’s pretty much true. It’s a very walkable city with a fantastic café culture full of independent konditorei cafés (which offer sit-down service), with an assortment of rich, tasty cakes and great coffee. It has great art galleries and grand imperial palaces, but without the crushing crowds of Paris and Versailles. As the original Music City, it’s easy to find shows and performances to suit your tastes. (We attended the famous Wiener Staatsoper, where I took in my first live opera, ever, at a surprisingly reasonable price). It’s also a compact city, easy to walk, though the transport system is excellent. Vienna is also a great base for visiting other cities in Central Europe, where Salzburg, Bratislava, Budapest, and Prague are only a few hours away by (frequent and relatively speedy) train.

We noticed several pedestrian signs showing loving couples, rather than the standard, like this one in front of the Wiener Staatsoper (Opera House)

Vienna has one of the largest tram systems in Europe, with 30 lines over 176.9 kilometres, and a fleet of 525 cars, including modern articulated LRVs and older trams and trailers. In Vienna, trams alone carry approximately 300 million passengers a year. They run in many different environments: on-street in mixed traffic, reserved lanes, dedicated median and side-of-street rights-of-way; there is also a tram tunnel south of the city centre. Until the 1980s, Straßenbahnen (the German name for trams) were the backbone of Vienna’s transport network, with a small Stadtbahn system (now incorporated into the modern U-Bahn) and regional and suburban (S-Bahn) trains providing limited rapid transit services. Though there are now five U-Bahn lines (two of which evolved from the Stadtbahn), the tram system remains robust and very useful for getting around.

Like all four cities mentioned in this post, Vienna operates a mix of low-floor trams built in the last 25 years, as well as older high-floor trams, many of which are accompanied by an unstaffed trailer. Vienna’s entire network — trams, buses, U-Bahn, and S-Bahn — is a proof-of-payment system. Fare inspections appeared to be infrequent; neither my spouse nor I were checked during our eight days in Vienna. Tickets and passes can be purchased from a machine (found at every U-Bahn entrance and at many tram stops) or on the WienMobil app.

There is also a separate interurban tram service called Badner Bahn, which extends to the historic spa town of Baden bei Wien, an hour south of Vienna’s city centre.

The modernized interurban originates in the heart of Vienna — across the street from the Wiener Staatsoper (Opera House) — then along local tram tracks and through the tunnel before entering its own right-of-way through the southern suburbs, and onwards through small towns, farms, and vineyards before arriving in Baden. There are several spurs leading to local industries; the regular passenger service shares the tracks with local freight trains.

Bratislava, just over one hour away from Vienna by train (or by catamaran), is served by a network of metre-gauge trams, trolley buses, and diesel buses, though trams predominate in the city centre. On Obchodná, several tram lines, pedestrians, cyclists, and the occasional delivery or emergency services vehicle share a narrow, but busy shopping street. It just works.

Outside the congested urban core, trams are afforded reserved lanes, sometimes separated from general traffic with curbs (and even grass medians), sometimes just painted lines. Bratislava’s tram system is smaller than Toronto’s, with 211 cars and 42 kilometres of revenue track, carrying around 70 million riders a year in 2019 (Toronto’s streetcars carried 108 million that year). It is also a much smaller city, with a population of around 660,000. I only visited Bratislava for a day, but I got to ride much of the tram network; I found it an easy and convenient way to get around.

Budapest, Hungary has the largest street railway system in the world by ridership, with Route 4/6 on Budapest’s Grand Boulevard (Hungarian: Nagykörút), often cited as the world’s busiest tram line. Route 4/6 also operates 53.99 metre long Combino Plus trams, which, when introduced in 2006, were the world’s longest. The Combinos are almost twice the length of Toronto’s new Bombardier Flexity cars, which are 28 metres long. Even with the huge capacity these trams have (they require two pantographs to draw enough power to operate), they operate on Line 4/6 every few minutes, all day long, every day.

Through the 1970s and 1980s, Budapest’s tram network was slowly cut back in favour of buses, trolley buses, and metro construction. By the 1990s, however, there was a street railway renaissance in Hungary’s capital because of the capacity and economy trams offered. With high frequencies, a private median, and high-capacity low-floor vehicles, Line 4/6 easily matches the capacity of a metro, at comparable speeds. Elsewhere, dedicated lanes and private rights-of-way make it clear that transit riders come first.

Though Budapest has a large metro network, most of it was not constructed until the l970s and 1980s. However, Line M1 was opened in 1896 as a shallow subway under Andrássy Avenue, the first electric underground metro in the world, and only the second subway, after London’s initial Underground line. Uniquely among urban transit routes, it it is listed as part of an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Finally, in Prague, we took several trams to take shelter from the rains that greeted us after arriving from Budapest, but also to see the city outside the crowded tourist spots. We took Line 1 from the city centre to the suburban district of Hrdlořezy, and returned via Line 9, taking a slightly different route back. Like Budapest, a metro system was planned and built in the 1970s and 1980s, but trams remained important, often providing local services parallel to deep underground metro lines.

What interested me was seeing major watermain work along the line. Through trams slowed where work was adjacent, there were no diversions or shuttle buses. The trams ran through.

Like Vienna, Bratislava, and Budapest, Prague operates a mixed fleet of older high-floor trams and modern low-floor light rail vehicles, similar to Toronto’s new fleet. But in Prague, heritage trams could often be spotted in service, especially on the west bank of the Vltava near Prague Castle.

Lessons for Toronto

After travelling, it can be easy to spot one’s hometown flaws and faults. But I spent a lot of time riding Vienna’s metros, trams, and buses, and mindfully experiencing the transport networks in Bratislava, Budapest, Prague, and Salzburg (which does not run trams, but has a large trolleybus network), I was left with some key takeaways on how to do transit here.

First and foremost, transit riders were respected. Not necessarily in terms of personable customer service, but the feeling that the next tram or bus was going to arrive on time, and a reliable interval. If there was a delay, it was very well communicated.

For instance, while waiting for a tram in Vienna, we experienced an unusually long wait. The next tram display kept showing the next two arrivals at 3 and 4 minutes. Not long after, a voice came on a loudspeaker posted above the tram stop sign announcing (in German, translated in English to us by one of my spouse’s colleagues) a delay because of a collision along the route. The blockage cleared after a few minutes, and we boarded a crowded tram. I appreciated the audio announcement, especially as it was a basic tram stop.

Next vehicle displays were common in every city we visited. They would list — in real time — the next several buses or trams, as well as if the vehicle was low-floor accessible or not with a wheelchair symbol. All buses are now fully accessible, but the information is useful for the tram lines, where there are still many older high-floor vehicles.

I also noted that in Vienna, and for the most part elsewhere, vinyl advertisement wraps did not cover passenger windows on trams and buses. Bratislava’s wrapped trams had some ads that used window areas, but these were kept to a minimum.

It was also clear that trams had dedicated signals on their routes, if not necessarily signal priority. But with smaller intersections and relatively short signal timings, the waits at each signalized intersection were generally minimal.

Tram signaling in Vienna and other Central European cites also includes remotely operated electric switches. Overhead signals indicate which direction the switch is set to; operators can pass through junctions at speed. While this is how trams operate in most places around the world, in Toronto, streetcar operators are required to stop before each switch and then crawl.

Though many tram stops are in private rights-of-way, in-street tram stops are designed for passenger safety and accessibility. These stops, depicted by the photograph below, have the curb lane raised to the level of the low-floor trams. This increases the visibility of passengers boarding and egressing, and also simplifies ramp deployment. Operators need not exit the cab and manually deploy the accessibility ramp, a timesaver versus the TTC’s ramp deployment on major streets. In the winter, this also helps keep the slush away from the tram stops.

Though Toronto is a very different city than Vienna, Budapest, or Prague, there are some clear takeaways. Keep the tram windows free of advertisements. Improve communications. Fix the track switches and signalize them. Raise the curb lanes at streetcar stops for safety, convenience, and accessibility. Fix the King Street Transit Priority corridor with a permanent streetscape and tighter vehicle restrictions. If it can be done on a narrow commercial street in Bratislava’s historic centre, there’s no reason why it can’t be done in a world financial capital.

These can even be done incrementally, but they need to be done if transit riders are deserving of respect and reliable surface transit.