The Athens Tram is the modern public

tram A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which Rolling stock, vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some ...

network system serving

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

. The system is owned and operated by

STASY Urban Rail Transport S.A. (, - pronounced as wikt:στάση, στάση "bus/train stop" ), commonly abbreviated as STASY, is a Greek public transport operator of the Athens Metro and the Athens Tram. It is the metro and tram subsidiary of T ...

, which replaced Tram S.A. in June 2011. STASY operates a fleet of 25

Alstom Citadis The Alstom Citadis is a family of low-floor trams and light rail vehicles built by Alstom. , over 2,300 Citadis trams have been sold and 1,800 tramways are in revenue service throughout the world, with operations in all six inhabited continents ...

and 35 Sirio vehicles, which serve two tram lines and 60 stops. The tram network spans a total length of throughout ten Athenian suburbs. This network runs from Syntagma (central Athens) to the coastal suburb of Palaio Faliro, where the line splits in two branches: the first ends as soon as it meets the Athens coastline at Pikrodafni Station (where it meets the other line), while the other exclusively runs between the Athens riviera (toward the southern suburb of Voula) and the port of

Piraeus Piraeus ( ; ; , Ancient: , Katharevousa: ) is a port city within the Athens urban area ("Greater Athens"), in the Attica region of Greece. It is located southwest of Athens city centre along the east coast of the Saronic Gulf in the Ath ...

. The network covers the majority of the city's

Saronic Gulf The Saronic Gulf ( Greek: Σαρωνικός κόλπος, ''Saronikós kólpos'') or Gulf of Aegina in Greece is formed between the peninsulas of Attica and Argolis and forms part of the Aegean Sea. It defines the eastern side of the isthmus of C ...

coastline. Athens' tram system provides average daily service to 65,000 passengers, and employs 345 people.

History

Old tram networks (1908-1960)

Athens Tram began its operations in 1882 with horse tramways. After 1908, the metre gauge tram network was electrified and was extended to 21 lines. The original Athens tram system ceased operations in 1960 and was replaced by trolleybuses and motor

buses A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a motor vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van, but fewer than the average rail transport. It is most commonly used ...

. A standard gauge tram system was built by the Hellenic Electric Railways, from the perimeter of the Piraeus Harbour to

Perama Perama () is a coastal town and a suburb of Piraeus and belongs to the Piraeus regional unit and is the southwestern limit of Athens urban area. It lies on the southwest edge of the Aegaleo mountains, on the Saronic Gulf coast. It is 8 km ...

Modern tram system

In March 2001, Tram S.A. was established as a public utility company under the supervision of the Ministry of Transport and Communications, as a subsidiary company of Attiko Metro S.A., the state company which developed the

Athens Metro The Athens Metro () is a rapid transit system serving the Athens urban area in Greece. Line 1 opened as a single-track conventional steam railway in 1869 and was electrified in 1904. Beginning in 1991, Elliniko Metro S.A. constructed and ext ...

network. The company started the construction of the initial network in the beginning of 2002, and was opened by Michalis Liapis ( Minister for Transport and Communications) on 19 July 2004, a few weeks prior to the

2004 Summer Olympics The 2004 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad (), and officially branded as Athens 2004 (), were an international multi-sport event held from 13 to 29 August 2004 in Athens, Greece. The Games saw 10,625 athletes ...

in Athens. The construction of the tram network was financed by the Third European Regional Development Fund and Greek state funds. In March 2011, the Greek Government passed Law 3920 to allow ISAP and Tram S.A. to be absorbed by AMEL. The resulting company was renamed STASY S.A. () and is a subsidiary of OASA S.A. The merger was officially announced on 10 June 2011. From 19 October 2018 to 20 November 2020, tram services were suspended between and , due to concerns over

subsidence Subsidence is a general term for downward vertical movement of the Earth's surface, which can be caused by both natural processes and human activities. Subsidence involves little or no horizontal movement, which distinguishes it from slope mov ...

in the underground riverbed of the Ilisos: services from to Edem and Mousson were also suspended from 16 March 2020 to 21 January 2021, due to realignment works associated with the Faliro Waterfront regeneration project.

Extensions

The first extension of the Athens Tram, consisting of a single-stop line from to in North Voula, opened on 15 November 2007. The second extension consists of a one-way loop from to Akti Poseidonos, along with twelve new stops: construction work started in 2013, and the first test run of the extension took place on 7 February 2019. From 28 November 2019, trams heading towards Faliro terminated at instead of Stadio Irinis & Filias, before running out of service towards Akti Poseidonos. The loop opened to the public on 15 December 2021, with as the provisional terminus for Line 7. The final terminus of the extension, Akti Poseidonos, is not yet open . In the early 2000s there was proposal for the tram lines to be extended towards

Keratsini Keratsini () is a suburban town in the western part of the Piraeus regional unit, which in turn is a part of the Athens Urban Area. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Keratsini-Drapetsona, of which it is the s ...

and Salamina. With a large part of the lines being underground, especially in Keratsini. With around an estimated 8,9 km the cost was expected to be around 180 million euros. But in 2018 a combined backlash by both local organisations and municipal governments halted the aforementioned plans, with now a new metro line being suggested instead.

Ticketing policy

Ticket counters and automatic ticket machines with touch screens are available in some of the stations. Purchased tickets are valid for 90 minutes (1 hour 30 minutes) after validation and can be used for several rides for all means of public transport in Athens including the metro, buses, and the urban part of the suburban railway (between Piraeus, Magoula and Koropi stations, excluding the airport). Passengers must validate their tickets at the electronic validating machines inside the tram vehicle at the start of their ride. The normal adult flat fare is €1.20 (valid for 90 minutes). There are daily and weekly tickets, as well as monthly cards which also apply for all means of public transport in Athens. Fares are checked frequently; passengers who fail to show a validated ticket or a monthly card are penalised by a fine of 60 times the price of a standard ticket. Children under 6, the handicapped, and persons currently enlisted in the military are eligible for free transportation.

Network

Current routes

The Athens Tram currently consists of two routes, Lines 6 and 7: * Line 6 starts at Syntagma Square in Central Athens, and runs south west towards the coast, before turning south east at the junction of Poseidonos Avenue and Achilleos towards Pikrodafni in Kalamaki. * Line 7 starts at Asklepieio Voulas in Voula, running north west along the coast towards Agia Triada in

, operating in a one-way loop west of Neo Faliro. Lines 6 and 7 (also known occasionally as T6 and T7 respectively) were introduced on 6 December 2021, replacing Lines 3, 4 and 5. Line 7 was extended from to Agia Triada on 15 December the same year. The two lines share tram tracks from Pikrodafni to the junction of Poseidonos Avenue and Achilleos.

Former routes

The present Athens Tram opened with five lines, which were named after

ancient Greeks Ancient Greece () was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity (), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically re ...

Aristophanes Aristophanes (; ; ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek Ancient Greek comedy, comic playwright from Classical Athens, Athens. He wrote in total forty plays, of which eleven survive virtually complete today. The majority of his surviving play ...

(Line 1),

Aeschylus Aeschylus (, ; ; /524 – /455 BC) was an ancient Greece, ancient Greek Greek tragedy, tragedian often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is large ...

(Line 2),

Thucydides Thucydides ( ; ; BC) was an Classical Athens, Athenian historian and general. His ''History of the Peloponnesian War'' recounts Peloponnesian War, the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been d ...

(Line 3),

Aristotle Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...

(Line 4), and

Plato Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...

(Line 5). Line 3 ran between Stadio Irinis & Filias (SEF) and Kolymvitirio, Line 4 ran between Syntagma and SEF, and Line 5 ran between Syntagma and Kolymvitirio. Lines 1 and 2 were shortened versions of Lines 4 and 5 respectively, terminating at Leoforos Vouliagmenis instead of Syntagma: Lines 1 and 2 were discontinued in early-2005. Lines 3 and 5 were extended to Asklepieio Voulas on 15 November 2007. From 28 November 2019, westbound trams of Lines 3 and 4 terminated at instead of Stadio Irinis & Filias.

Stops

Since December 2021, the system consists of 59 tram stops: one additional stop, on the western end of the Piraeus branch, is complete but not yet open. A majority of the stops are within the

South South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both west and east. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþa ...

and Central Athens regional units: thirteen are in

, and one is in Voula.

Rolling stock

The Athens Tram opened in 2004 with 35 Sirio trams from

AnsaldoBreda Hitachi Rail Italy S.p.A. is a multinational rolling stock manufacturer company based in Pistoia, Italy. Formerly AnsaldoBreda S.p.A., a subsidiary of state-owned Finmeccanica, the company was sold in 2015 to Hitachi Rail of Japan. After the dea ...

. To support the extension of the system into the centre of Piraeus, an order was placed in July 2018 for 25

305 trams, delivery of which began in September 2020 and ended in December 2021. The tram depot is in Elliniko.

Notes

References

External links

Transport for Athens
(OASA), the ticketing authority for the Tram
Urban Rail Transport S.A.
the operator of the Tram

article on UrbanRail.Net
Athens Tram
gallery at public-transport.net {{Urban transport in Greece Electric railways in Greece

750 V DC railway electrification Railway lines opened in 2004 2004 establishments in Greece