Brest tramway
The Brest tramway located in Brest, Brittany, France consists of two light-rail lines. The system is operated by RD Brest, and it's part of the Bibus network. It is the successor to a tram network that operated in Brest from 1898 to 1944. The network has the distinction of being trilingual.
Line A, the first line, is long and has 28 stops and two branches, connecting Porte de Plouzané in the west with branches to Porte de Gouesnou and Porte de Guipavas northeast of the city centre. The end-to-end journey takes 38 minutes. Line A began service on 23 June 2012, and is expected to serve 50,000 passengers per day.
Line B, the second line currently under construction, will be long and have 11 stops, connecting Gares in the city centre with CHU La Cavale northwest of the city centre. The end-to-end journey will take 17 minutes. There will be three transfer hubs along the line. Line B is expected to open in 2026.
At Place de la Liberté, riders will be able transfer between lines A and B, as well as to Line D, a planned bus rapid transit line. The lower station of Line C, an urban cable car line, lies near Line A's Château station.
History
Old tram of Brest
In 1898, the first line of the Brest tram opened. The network was in operation until the city was bombed in 1944. In 1947, it was replaced by trolleybuses, which operated on three lines, with 30 vehicles. From 1963, diesel-powered buses were purchased to modernize the vehicle fleet. From 1965, one-person operation was introduced on the buses, while the trolleybuses still had to be operated by two drivers. For reasons of personnel savings, the trolleybus operation was therefore discontinued on 9 November 1970.Revival plan
In 1984, the Urban Community of Brest, then chaired by Georges Lombard, evokes the return of the tram as part of the development of its urban transport plan. In the following year, a state subsidy completed a finance study for the project. On 19 December 1988, the Community Council of the CUB unanimously votes to create a two-line network. Next year, newly elected mayor of Brest becomes president of the CUB, and Pierre Maille takes over the file. On 1 October 1989, the urban community decided to continue with the technical and financial studies leading to a project of two lines with a total length of. However, in 1990, over 80% of the population have voted against the project in a referendum, which buried the project until the following decade.In the municipal elections of 2001, François Cuillandre, who succeeded Pierre Maille as mayor of Brest, becomes the president of the CUB and launches studies concerning a new tramway project. His new project intended to complement the North-South TCSP on a commercial axis of long, plus of service roads. By the end of 2002, the project was subsidized at 30%, the first consultations and preliminary studies were launched, and back then the start of work was set to be in 2010. Next year, the start of work was set to start in 2009. In November 2003, when the preliminary consultation was about to end, the mayor of Brest announced that the line would link the Technopôle Brest-Iroise to the Kergaradec business park, serving the streets of Siam and Jean-Jaurès. It was also announced the transport payment, then set at 1.05%, one of the lowest in France, will be gradually reassessed in order to finance the line; it reached the rate of 1.65% in 2007.
In 2006, a new step was taken with the creation of SemTram, the mixed economy company which will be responsible for the project management of the line. The SemTram is a group of companies made up of the SEM companies of the TCSP and Egis Rail. The SEM of the TCSP is a local mixed economy company with a capital of €150 thousand, created in April 2006 on deliberation of 16 December 2005, which aims to ensure the project management of the work of the first tram line in Brest. It brings together seven partners who are: Brest Métropole Océane, Caisse des dépôts et consignations, Departmental Council of Finistère, Brest CCI Brest, Crédit Agricole du Finistère, Caisse interfédérale de Crédit mutuel, and Caisse d’épargne de Bretagne.
In February 2007, the community council of Brest Métropole Océane voted to build the Froutven branch at the same time as the rest of the line, bringing its total length to nearly, for an amount estimated in July 2006 at 298 million euros. Completed in May 2007, the consultation presenting the project to the public made it possible to add two additional stations, one in the city center and one in Kergaradec, for a total of 27 stations.
Construction
For Line A, construction work on the platform began in early 2010, followed in June by laying the foundation stone for the maintenance center. The site of the maintenance center is marked by shell demining operations from World War II when the city had been bombed for nearly four years. The demining operations that took place from August 2009 to March 2010 were necessary to remove 16.5 tons of explosives and demolish 11 blockhouses. The first rail was laid and welded by the end of August 2010. Overall, the work in 2010 was devoted to the construction of the platform and the laying of the tracks, while the work in 2011 was devoted to the installation of equipment and the electrical supply, signaling and the development of stations.In February 2010, a controversy broke out over the choice of the supplier of the granite slabs that decorate the public spaces within the tram network, Eurovia, the Chinese company that won the tender for supplying the granite, was chosen because it was more competitive in price, which was seen by some as ignoring the local granite providers and affecting the sustainable development plans. In May, the metropolis announced that local companies would win part of the contracts, in particular the paving of the Place de Strasbourg.
On the night of 22 to 23 August 2011, a major stage of the work was completed with the installation of the new deck of the Recouvrance bridge, the old deck dating from 1954 with limited tonnage was replaced for a new structure, making it possible to support the 40 tonnes of a tram train, and equipped with cantilevers for pedestrians on either side. At the end of November 2011, it was announced that the tram would have 28 stations, with the entry into service in 2012 of the Kerlaurent station, whose name was initially attributed to the Eau Blanche station, originally defined as a "reserve" station of the branch of Guipavas, but whose construction of 300 homes nearby motivated the metropolis to build it immediately.
The final phase for testing operation on Line A took place from 5 June to 22 June 2012.
In February 2010, the local authorities announced they had started preparing studies for the construction of a second line, Line B. Mayor François Cuillandre also said: "We are convinced that the second line will be requested once the first is operational." During the construction of Line A in 2011, various preliminary work was carried out to enable the construction of the second line without serious disruption to operations on the first line.
Line B was created under the project name Mon Réseau Grandit. Construction for Line B began in April 2023, starting with the relocation of underground utilities. Construction of the roadbed for the tramway began in early 2024. In late 2024, work started on terminal stations. Work for both Line B and Line D occurred simultaneously.
Inauguration
Line A was inaugurated at 11 am, on 23 June 2012, at the end of the Rue de Siam, in front of the Recouvrance bridge, in the presence of the mayor François Cuillandre and the president of the Brittany region Jean-Yves Le Drian, marking the start of two days of festivities including a giant parade and a flashmob on the evening of 23 June. The Bibus network was offered for free during the inaugural weekend as well as for the first day of operation.On 4 October 2012, the British Light Rail Transit Association and Tramways & Urban Transit magazine named the Brest tramway the second-best "international tram project of the year", tied with the Casablanca and Zaragoza tramways, at the organisation's annual Light Rail Awards.
Rolling stock
Line A is operated with 20 Alstom Citadis 302 trams, which were jointly purchased with the Dijon tramway to reduce cost. The tram sets are numbered from 1001 to 1020. The first train was delivered on 7 September 2011, from the Alstom factory in Aytré, on the outskirts of La Rochelle. The other train sets were delivered and put into service from November at a rate of around two to three trainsets per month until June 2012. The five-section, double-ended trams are long and wide and have a capacity for 200 passengers with 42 seated.Alstom has scheduled the delivery of eight new Citadis 305 trams to support Line B starting August for an expected line opening in February 2026. This is part of a joint order including Brest, Toulouse and Besançon. These will have differences from the trams used on Line A. The new trams will have larger windows and 12 more seated positions for riders. The nose of the tram has been modified to reduce the severity of injuries in the event of a collision with a pedestrian. The new trams will be 3.5 percent lighter and use 25 percent less electricity. These trams will be long and wide. Each side of the tram will have 4 double doors wide plus 2 single doors. They will have a capacity of 201 passengers with seating for 54. There will be zones reserved for wheelchairs and strollers.
The Operations and Maintenance Centre, is located at 1 Avenue 1ère DFL, near Line A's Porte de Plouzané station. Serving both lines, the depot provides storage, maintenance, repairs, and interior and exterior cleaning for trams. Line B is expected to open in 2026.
Cost
The cost of the project to build Line A was estimated at €290 million euros in July 2006, distributed as follows:- Engineering services and project management: €60 million
- Construction of the maintenance center: €15 million
- Purchase of rolling stock: €55 million
- Construction of engineering structures: €10 million
- Construction of track and equipment infrastructure: €158 million
In 2025, the estimated cost for Line B was €225 million, jointly funded by Brest Métropole, the French government, the Bretagne région, the city of Brest, the European Union and the Agence de l’Eau Loire Océan.