Trams in Nice, France - July 2016

The Nice tramway is a 8.7-kilometre (5.4 mi), single-line tramway in the city of Nice in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France. It is operated by the Société nouvelle des transports de l'agglomération niçoise division of Veolia Transdev under the name Lignes d'azur.

Opened on 24 November 2007, it replaced bus lines 1, 2, 5 and 18. From the start, the system had 20 Alstom Citadis trams in service, providing a frequency of seven minutes. Since its inception, the number of passengers has increased from 70,000 per day in 2008 to 90,000 per day in 2011. The frequency of trams has gradually increased a tram every seven minutes in 2007, to every four minutes in 2011.

Given the success of the T1 line, mayor of Nice Christian Estrosi decided to create two other lines, which were planned to go into service beginning in 2015. Line 2 is to serve the Nice airport to the west through the construction of a multimodal center and the Port of Nice to the east. Line 3 will cross the valley of the Var. In addition, the Nice Côte d'azur urban region decided to extend line 1 to the Pasteur neighbourhood.

Like many other French cities, Nice has major traffic problems, including the fact that most economic activities are concentrated in the centre. To overcome these problems, studies on the implementation of transit in dedicated lanes were conducted in 1987. The city of Nice began to implement dedicated bus lanes in 1997, and launched a study on the implementation of a tram line in 1998.

Trams were chosen because they appeared to be more reliable than buses, since they are not subject to the vagaries of traffic, but they are less expensive than a subway line. The tram was declared a public utility in 2003 and work began the same year; the line was placed in service on 24 November 2007 after several weeks of technical trials, even though construction was not fully completed.

In the months following the launch of the tram, there were between 65,000 and 70,000 passengers daily the number rose to 90,000 by January 2011.

The Nice tramway was designed to serve most of the population of Nice. As the city is situated on hilly ground by the sea, the line was drawn as a U shape, passing through the city centre.

There is currently only one line, served by two termini: Henri Sappia and Hopital Pasteur. A second line, connecting the city centre with the airport and the Central Business District (CADAM, Arénas), is under construction.

Line 2 will run for 11.3 km of which 3.2 km near the center are going to be underground. Starting at the port in the east and ending at Nice Côte d'Azur Airport and Nikaïa in the west, serving 20 stations in total. Ridership expectations are 140 000 pessanger per day. Work is to begin in the second half of 2014. A €270m contract for building the underground section has been awarded in December 2013 with an opening date being envisioned for the end of 2017. The total cost of the line is projected to be €770m of which the central government is contributing €52.8m.

The cars of the Nice tramway are unique and have been designed to blend in with the Niçois architecture. They are based on the Alstom Citadis family of tramcars and were built near La Rochelle, Poitou-Charentes. A standard 5-car tram measures 35 m (114 ft 10 in) but extra carriages may be added, bringing the length to 45 m (147 ft 7 5⁄8 in). The tram is 2.65 m (8 ft 8 3⁄8 in) wide and can carry 200 passengers at 18 km/h (11 mph) compared to 11 km/h (6.8 mph) for the bus. It uses the 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) standard gauge.

Footage was filmed in July 2016.

Text from Wikipedia.