Montpellier tram

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tram
Montpellier tram
image
Basic information
Country France
city Montpellier
opening June 30, 2000
operator TAM
Infrastructure
Route length 60.5 km
Gauge 1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Power system 750 V = , overhead line
Stops 84
business
Lines 4th
Clock in the peak hours 3 min
Cruising speed 20 km / h
vehicles 30 Citadis 401
27 Citadis 302
27 Citadis 402
Top speed 70 km / h
statistics
Passengers 282,000 per day
Network plan
The route network since July 2016

The Montpellier tram ( French: Tramway de Montpellier ) is the tram system of the French city ​​of Montpellier . Four lines are already in operation, a fifth, sixth and seventh are planned. It is operated by the Transports de l'agglomération de Montpellier (TaM). The modern tram is the successor to the old tram, which was shut down in 1949.

The old tram network

Meter gauge railcar on the Place de la Comédie, around 1947

From July 18, 1880 to 1883, the Compagnie Générale des Omnibus de Marseille built a network of horse-drawn tram lines in Montpellier. At that time the city had about 55,000 inhabitants. The 39 horses with 20 carriages served six lines. Depending on the route, they ran every 30 minutes or every hour. This local transport network was given up again because of the poor maintenance of the tracks and the poor care of the horses.

An electric tram network was later created. The first meter-gauge tram lines began operating in November 1897, and others followed at the beginning of 1898. They opened up the area of ​​Montpellier and the neighboring municipality of Castelnau-le-Lez every 7.5 to 15 minutes. The Place de la Comédie was the main hub of five tram lines. Other transfer points were the train station and the square in front of the Saint-Denis church. The length of the network was 12 kilometers.

Due to the emerging competition from the automobile and in particular because of the creation of a bus network, the Montpellier tram was shut down on January 31, 1949.

The history of the new tram and lines 1 and 2

Entrance to the overbuilding of the railway line north of the Saint-Roch station
The Hôtel de Ville stop (now Du Guesclin ) located along the railway tracks

During the 1990s, under Mayor Georges Frêche, the city council proposed the rebuilding of a tram network with three lines. The choice of rolling stock and the route of the first line were discussed at the time. One of the main members of the conservative opposition in the local council of Montpellier, Bruno Barthez, fought for the project of a so-called Tramway sur pneumatiques , named after the example of the TVR Caen . The main argument for this was the lower construction costs of the route compared to a classic tram on rails.

The first line was supposed to connect Paillade (in the west) with the new shopping and leisure center Odysseum (in the east), serving important areas of the city: Euromédecine, the Lapeyronnie hospital, the university, the old town ( l'Écusson ), the train station and the bus station as well as Antigone, with the Olympic swimming pool and the central media library. There were conflicts regarding the crossing of the old town: the retailers opposed a route on the Boulevard du Jeu-de-Paume, a heavily frequented main thoroughfare, and also disagreed with the guided tour through the pedestrian areas of Rue Foch and Rue de la Loge. Finally, a route across the Allée de la Citadelle and the Place de la Comédie was proposed and accepted - despite the resistance of the innkeepers, whose terraces were cut by the tracks. To the north of Saint-Roch main station , the railway line in the direction of Paris was "encased" over a length of around 250 meters, and the tram runs here over the railway tracks. The Du Guesclin station (formerly Hôtel de Ville ) is located in this elevated area .

The first line was opened in July 2000. As with most of the new tram operators in France, passenger forecasts were far exceeded. Line 1 of the standard-gauge tram now carries an average of 130,000 passengers per day.

Line 2 was opened in December 2006. It was 19.6 kilometers long and comprised 33 stations with a distance of 300 to 500 meters between stops. The two end sections were designed as a single track. The construction cost 400 million euros. After the public benefit of the project was determined on May 11, 2004, work on the line could be carried out between 2004 and 2006.

Nevertheless, the tram is criticized by residents and associations. Local residents complain about the noise caused by the trains late into the night (in the suburb of Boutonnet, for example). Dealers complain about the losses caused during construction, especially when the tram obstructs car access to a mall. This happened with the redesign of national road 113, which was a main axis to Montpellier and has now been converted into a city boulevard in Castelnau-le-Lez.

Citizens' associations criticize the chosen route, especially the tight curves and the detours through sparsely populated areas that slow down the railways. From the beginning, the passenger association Collectif Tramway de Montpellier proposed a faster and cheaper project to connect the city center. The magazine Ville & Transports judges, however, that Montpellier is building an astonishingly close-knit network, through which the possible start-to-finish relationships are multiplied, analogous to examples in Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

The history of the origins of lines 3 and 4

Line 3 trains at the junction near the Mosson stop in the suburb of Juvignac
A train on line 1 leaves the final stop at Odysseum
Line 2 train at the Saint-Jean-le-Sec stop
Line 3 train at the Pérols - Étang de l'Or terminus
Line 4 train on rue André Michel

Lines 3 and 4 were opened on April 7, 2012. The proposed variant for line 3 was submitted to the responsible ministry on July 25, 2002. After the public benefit was established, construction began on Line 3 on March 19, 2009. It is 19.3 kilometers long and has 29 stops. From Rive du Lez to Gare Saint-Roch , it uses the route previously used by Line 2, otherwise it runs largely on newly built tracks. In order to create a connection point, line 1 was extended by one station to Mosson .

After the new route went into operation, the route of line 2 in the city center was changed. It had initially traveled along the Pompignane , Place de l'Europe and Voltaire stations , but now it takes a shorter route from the Corum transfer station to the Gare Saint-Roch station, which is served by all lines, via the Place de la Comedie . She uses a section of the route previously reserved for Line 1. This relocation created space for a newly created line 4, which was only largely re- routed in the Moularès - Nouveau Saint-Roch section, otherwise existing lines were used and replaced line 2 between the Corum and Rives du Lez stations .

On July 1, 2016, between Place Albert 1er and Observatoire, the previous terminus of line 4, a further section of 1.2 kilometers in length with three additional stations went into operation. As a result, line 4 became a ring line that circles the historic old town. This line now has 18 stops, at nine of these stations there is a transition to the other lines. In order to make it easier for passengers to find their way around, a distinction is made between line 4a (goes around the old town clockwise) and line 4b (goes counter-clockwise). This new line will later also be used by the planned line 5.

Planning for the construction of line 5

The construction of line 5 is currently being planned. The route will be 20.5 kilometers long and run from Prades la Mandarine through downtown Montpellier to Lavérune. The new line will use sections of the already built tram network. After a planning standstill in 2014/15, it was announced that instead of 2017, the line on a route that is more cost-effective than the previous plans would not be completed until 2025.

Vehicle fleet

A total of 83 articulated trolleys are in use. From 1999 to 2002, 30 Citadis 301 railcars from the manufacturer Alstom were delivered for Line 1 . Due to the high number of passengers, they were expanded to the Citadis 401 by adding two middle sections by the end of 2003 and lengthened from 30 to 40 meters. From 2006 onwards, a total of 27 Citadis 302 multi-articulated wagons were delivered for Line 2. The vehicle types, which differ in shape and color, are used on a single line, the blue 401s are only used on line 1, the 302 with a floral design only on line 2. The same applies to the recently created lines 3 and 4.

The blue wagons with white swallows are supposed to symbolize the sky, the floral pattern of line 2 the earth. The 27 Citadis 402 vehicles on Line 3 are decorated with multicolored marine motifs. Line 4 has two different colors, the basic colors gold and black. They are supposed to represent the "fourth element" fire and light.

In contrast to the rigid-axle multi-articulated wagons Citadis 302 and 402, the type 301/401 wagons are not 100% low-floor due to the required wagon floor height above the motor bogies under the end sections .

literature

  • Christoph Groneck : French planning models for tram systems compared to Germany . Dissertation, University of Wuppertal 2007 ( PDF:) .
  • Harald A. Jahn: The future of cities . Phoibos Verlag, Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-85161-039-0 .

Web links

Commons : Montpellier Tram  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from October 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.montpellier-agglo.com
  2. ↑ Leslie Anagnostopoulos: "Le premier tram était tiré par des chevaux", article published in the Gazette de Montpellier, No. 966–967, December 22, 2006 - January 4, 2007, page 18.
  3. ↑ Leslie Anagnostopoulos: "Tram d'hier et tram d'aujourd'hui", article in Gazette de Montpellier, No. 966-967, December 22, 2006 - January 4, 2007, pages 18 and 19.
  4. ↑ Éric Delhaye: “Le tramway déraille un pneu”, report of the Montpellier municipal council meeting on November 28, 1995, published in: Midi libre on November 29, 1995.
  5. ↑ Tramway de Montpellier - Info ligne 1
  6. ↑ a b line network 20122 in: Tramtom's page for the tram in Montpellier (F) / PDF file , accessed on February 16, 2012.
  7. ^ François Enver: "Montpellier. Trois lignes de tram bien habillés", published in: Ville & Transports magazine No. 419, February 28, 2007, page 31.
  8. ↑ Montpellier inaugure simultanément les lignes 3 et 4 de son tramway in Ville, Rail et Transports April 6, 2012
  9. ↑ a b Blickpunkt Tram 3/2012, p. 127
  10. ↑ A Montpellier, le tramway bouclera sa boucle le 1er juillet from Mobilicités, accessed on July 3, 2016
  11. ↑ Montpellier celebrates completion of tram loop at Railway Gazette, accessed July 10, 2016
  12. ↑ www.ligne5-montpellier-agglo.com ( Memento of the original from August 15, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ligne5-montpellier-agglo.com
  13. ↑ Transports de l'agglomération de Montpellier, information about the vehicles ( Memento of the original of April 23, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.montpellier-agglo.com