Passengers resume taking tram at pre-pandemic level

Passengers have piled into wagons on Luxembourg's newly extended tram line at levels similar to pre-pandemic days of commuting.  

More than 36,000 people jumped onto tram wagons daily in the first days after the city added stops at Hamilius, Place de Metz, Place de Paris and Gare Centrale in mid-December, operating company Luxtram said. The tram now runs from the LuxExpo in Kirchberg to the capital city's central train station.

An average of 31,300 daily passengers climbed aboard between 21-24 December – before the Christmas holiday and the expanded curfew and store closings that took hold in the following two weeks. After a dip to around 20,000 weekday tram travellers during the first week of January, ridership pick up again to 31,900 passengers on Monday, when non-essential shops were allowed to reopen, Luxtram said.

That represents about a quarter of the city's nearly 123,000 residents if each rider used the free service once daily.

The number of passengers fluctuated throughout 2020, in line with the country’s health situation and restrictions. The tram recorded some 30,000 users per day in February – before the government made public transit free, the pandemic emergency beginning in March and the extension's completion. But with the pandemic-forced spring lockdown, the number dropped to just 1,200 per day.

The travel time from one end of the route at the LuxExpo in Kirchberg to the Gare terminus takes around 21 minutes, with trams circulating every 4-5 minutes during peak hours. Work has now started to extend the line further to the Cloche d'Or business centre south of the city.

Plans are for the tram to eventually connect to the city's Findel airport. There are also plans to build a tramway by 2030 connecting the capital and Esch-sur-Alzette, the country's second-largest city.

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