Trams are the most popular form of public transport and cities which removed their tram rails years ago are planning to relay them, says a report in Tuesday’s Trouw.

The university cities of Groningen, Nijmegen and Utrecht are all looking into reintroducing or extending tram lines, while passengers in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague prefer their trams to the bus or metro.
Utrecht reintroduced the tram in 1983 to link the city with the suburbs of IJsselstein and Nieuwegein. It now has plans to extend the line to De Uithof and to put a line through the centre of Utrecht. By 2020 it wants the suburb of Leidsche Rijn linked into the network.
Groningen and Nijmegen councils also have plans for tram networks, initially to link the cities with university campuses. The buses currently in use are full and more buses would only add to the traffic on busy roads, the councils say.
The biggest problem is money. Light-rail advisor Rob van der Bijl told Trouw that trams are more expensive to run than buses. ‘But trams are cleaner,’ he said. And the new low-slung trams make it easier for older people and mothers with children to get on and off.
Meanwhile, a recent survey by Amsterdam’s public transport company found that 77.5% of respondents were positive about travelling by tram, compared with 73.2% for the bus and 62.2% for the metro. Trouw says figures for Rotterdam and The Hague are similar.