Edinburgh Trams
Edinburgh Trams is a tramway in Edinburgh, Scotland, operated by Edinburgh Trams Ltd. It is an line between Newhaven and Edinburgh Airport, with 23 stops.
A modern tram network for Edinburgh was proposed by Edinburgh Council in 1999, with detailed design work being performed over the next decade. Construction of the first phase, linking Edinburgh Airport with Newhaven, began in June 2008, but encountered substantial delays and cost overruns. During 2009, a 15-year contract held by Transdev to operate and maintain the tram network was cancelled. By mid-2010, cancellation of the whole project was being publicly considered; during the following year it was announced that the length of the tram network would be drastically curtailed. Prior to August 2011, the project was overseen by Transport Initiatives Edinburgh, a company wholly owned by Edinburgh Council; TIE was disbanded largely due to its failings on the project's delivery. The troubled construction of the Edinburgh Tram was subject to a lengthy formal inquiry, chaired by Lord Hardie, which concluded that failings by Edinburgh Council and its arms-length companies were largely to blame for the delays in construction.
On 31 May 2014, the tramway was officially opened to the public, but only between the airport and York Place. The service is operated by Edinburgh Trams Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Transport for Edinburgh, in which the City of Edinburgh Council has a controlling interest. The service is equipped with 27 CAF Urbos 3 vehicles. It runs at a seven-minute interval for most of the day, seven days per week. Fares and ticketing are integrated with Lothian Buses, with the same fares charged on both systems, except for services to the airport where the tram is more expensive. In May 2025, contactless payment was introduced for the trams, with a 'tap on, tap off' scheme.
Since the original opening of the tramway, various changes have been implemented. In December 2016, the Edinburgh Gateway tram stop, between Gyle Centre and Gogarburn, was opened to provide an interchange between Edinburgh Trams and the Fife Circle Line and Edinburgh to Aberdeen Lines. Following the council's approval for an extension of the line to Newhaven in March 2019, construction work commenced that November, and was completed on schedule in June 2023, despite being delayed for three months by the coronavirus pandemic.
In August 2025, a public consultation was launched for an additional extension serving the north–south axis of the city. This could link Granton in the north via either the Roseburn Path to Murrayfield or via Orchard Brae and Dean Bridge to the west end of Princes Street. There are also proposals to run trams over North Bridge and South Bridge to Cameron Toll then along Old Dalkeith Road to the Royal Infirmary and BioQuarter. The cost is estimated at between £2bn and £2.9bn.
History
Background
Edinburgh and Leith were originally served by horse-drawn coaches, and then from 1871 various companies and corporations ran trams that were horse-drawn, then cable driven and finally electric. The municipal Edinburgh Corporation Tramways ran from 1919 until 16 November 1956. After that date, public transport consisted of buses and a limited network of commuter rail lines.Towards the end of the 20th century, there was revived interest in trams in the United Kingdom and networks were reintroduced in Birmingham, Croydon, Manchester, Nottingham and Sheffield. Proposals for a network in Edinburgh were made in the 1990s, and a plan to build a line along Princes Street and Leith Walk to Newhaven was proposed in 1999 by the City of Edinburgh Council, Lothian and Edinburgh Enterprise and the New Edinburgh Tramways Company.
Initial proposals and agreement
A 2001 proposal envisaged three routes, lines 1, 2 and 3. The first was a circular route around the northern suburbs, and the others were radial routes to Newbridge in the west and Newcraighall in the south. All lines would have passed through the city centre. In May 2004, a 15-year operating contract was awarded to Transdev, to operate and maintain the tram network. This contract was cancelled in 2009.Two bills to reintroduce a tram network were passed by the Scottish Parliament in March 2006. Lines 1 and 2 received parliamentary permission, but funding the entire network was deemed impossible. Line 3, to be paid for by a proposed Edinburgh congestion charge, was scrapped when the charge was heavily defeated in a referendum and construction of the remaining two lines was split into four phases:
- Phase 1a from Newhaven to Edinburgh Airport via Princes Street, combining parts of lines 1 and 2
- Phase 1b from Haymarket to Granton Square via Crewe Toll, comprising most of the remainder of line 1
- Phase 2 linking Granton Square and Newhaven, completing the line 1 loop
- Phase 3 extending the airport line to Newbridge, completing line 2
Following a lost vote in the Scottish Parliament, the SNP-led minority Scottish Government agreed to continue the line from the airport to Leith on condition that no more public money would be supplied. A report by Audit Scotland, commissioned by the Scottish Government, confirmed that the cost projections were sound. The cost of the scheme in 2003 was estimated at £498million, £375million in funding from the Scottish Government and £45million from Edinburgh Council.
On 25 October 2007, the council approved the final business case. Approval was given on 22 December 2007 for TIE to sign contracts with CAF to supply vehicles and BBS to design and construct the network. Contract negotiations finished in April 2008, and construction started in June 2008. By this stage the cost of the project was estimated at £521million. Funding problems and political disputes led to the scaling back of the original plans. In April 2009, the council cancelled phase 1b, citing revenue shortfall created by the Great Recession to save an estimated £75million. The Granton extension was also cancelled for the same purpose.
Construction: 2007–2012
Until August 2011, the project was overseen by Transport Initiatives Edinburgh, a company wholly owned by the City of Edinburgh Council, who were responsible for project-managing the construction of the tramway.After the draft business case was accepted by the Scottish Government in March 2007, initial construction work commenced in July 2007, with the diversion of underground utilities in preparation for track-laying in Leith. These works followed a plan by System Design Services, a joint design team led by Parsons Brinckerhoff and Halcrow Group.
In May 2008, final contracts to build the tram system were awarded to BSC, a consortium of Bilfinger Berger, Siemens and Spanish tram builder Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles.
The tramway uses a mix of street running and segregated off-road track, with conventional tram stop platforms. Stops are fitted with shelters, ticket machines, lighting and CCTV. The network is operated from a depot in Gogar, close to the A8 roundabout, immediately west of Edinburgh Gateway tram stop.
The route of the line required the construction of bridges to cross railway lines at Edinburgh Park and Stenhouse, and a tunnel under the A8 near the Gogar roundabout. A bridge at Balgreen was widened. Works to build a tram interchange at Haymarket station involved the demolition of a Category C listed building, the former Caledonian Alehouse on Haymarket Terrace.
Some on-street track was laid in a special foundation with cobbled road surfacing designed to be sympathetic with the style of Edinburgh streets but was removed in many places due to objections from cyclists. The trams are powered by overhead cables attached to purpose-built poles or mounted on the sides of buildings. Nine electrical sub-stations were planned for the line to Newhaven, both underground and above-ground but only five were built after the line was truncated at York Place.
Revisions and delays
In 2008 and 2009, the project met with delays to work on tramway infrastructure. Phase 1b of the project was cancelled because of a funding shortfall in April 2009. Contractual disputes delayed track-laying in the city centre. In December 2009, media reported that the project budget was running over £545million, and the system was unlikely to come into operation until February 2012 or later. The operating contract with Transdev was cancelled in December 2009 to reduce costs and it was announced that the trams would be operated by Edinburgh Trams Limited, a subsidiary of Transport for Edinburgh. During March 2010, Bilfinger Berger announced that the estimated completion date would be in 2014.Contractual disputes
In February 2009, work on the Princes Street section stopped due to contractual disagreements between TIE and BSC after the latter submitted a request for an additional £80million of funding. Edinburgh Council believed the contractors' claims were unjustified as they had agreed to fixed-price contracts. After negotiations, BSC agreed to commence construction in March 2009 within the original budget, although disagreements remained. Work restarted and line construction went ahead.In August 2009, TIE began legal proceedings against the BSC consortium over delays to the project, and track-laying on Leith Walk, Shandwick Place and Haymarket was suspended. At issue were alleged changes to BSC's work specification, including track works on Princes Street and £5million additional costs for foundation work near Murrayfield Stadium. The BSC consortium alleged that TIE had not diverted the underground utilities in time for track-laying to begin, breaching contractual agreements and costing the consortium additional staffing expenditure.
In January 2010, the independent arbiter found in favour of TIE on some points, but on most of the disputed issues ruled in favour of BSC and awarded the consortium 90% of its additional costs, estimated to be up to £80million.
Delays in track laying and depot construction affected vehicle testing. By September 2009, construction was reported to be nine months behind schedule, and CAF was due to deliver the first trams from its factory in Spain. With key project dependency out of synchronisation, TIE held discussions with Transport for London about delivering the trams to Croydon to conduct operational tests on the Tramlink network. Tram vehicle testing commenced in March 2010 on the Siemens test track in Wildenrath, Germany. The tests included recreating the steep gradients of Leith Walk, and using weights to simulate the heavy passenger load expected during a Murrayfield match day.