Single track
Single track and double track are slang terms that describe one aspect of German local law .
Single track means that a head of a municipality elected directly by the people (e.g. mayor) acts both as its political representative and as the full-time head of its administration.
The dual track model, on the other hand, provides that the respective municipal representative body (e.g. City Council) elects a voluntary, political representative (e.g. mayor) and, in addition, a full-time electoral officer as head of administration (main administrative officer, e.g. . Oberstadtdirektor ) appoints. The dual track is part of the North German Council Constitution and comes from the British legal tradition . It was practiced in Germany after 1945 in countries that belonged to the British zone of occupation .
The two-track system has now been replaced by the single-track system in all German states , most recently in Lower Saxony in 1996 .