Trams represent in our days a valid answer to needs to provide cities with an attractive public transport system, competitive with private cars and feasible with limited resources and times.
However trams networks are often complex to plan, to project, to build and to manage mainly because of the impact on traffic, on on-street parking and on shops: for these reasons years ago trams were eliminated in our cities.
The objectives of this paper are firstly to describe trams characteristics and performances in comparison with other transport means, then to present trams networks development in the world over the past decades, finally to analyse technological innovation in trams transport, as vehicles, as systems and as networks, with reference to the most recent and significant experiences all over the world. |
