page_title: Transport in Manchester
section_title: Tram – Metrolink
hierarchical_section_title: Transport in Manchester / Tram – Metrolink
caption_attribution_description: Greater Manchester's Metrolink tram number 3009A, in Salford Quays, Greater Manchester, England.
context_page_description: The transport infrastructure of Greater Manchester is built up of numerous transport modes and forms an integral part of the structure of Greater Manchester and North West England – the most populated region outside of South East England which had approximately 301 million annual passenger journeys using either buses, planes, trains or trams in 2014. Its position as a national city of commerce, education and cultural importance means the city has one of the largest and most thorough transport infrastructures which is heavily relied upon by its 2.7 million inhabitants in the Greater Manchester conurbation and further afield in the North West region. Public transport comes under the jurisdiction of Transport for Greater Manchester.
  Greater Manchester has a higher percentage of the motorway network than any other county. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, it has the most traffic lanes side by side, spread across several parallel carriageways – the M61 at Linnyshaw Moss, Greater Manchester, close to the M60 interchange. The M60 is one of only two motorways in the UK designated as an 'Orbital Motorway'.
context_section_description: Manchester has an urban light rail system called Metrolink. Operated by a Keolis / Amey consortium, Metrolink links the city centre to Altrincham, Ashton-under-Lyne, Bury, East Didsbury, Eccles, Manchester Airport, Rochdale and Trafford Centre. It is a high-frequency service, with trams running every 6–12 minutes. It carried 30 million passengers in 2014.
  Trams first appeared on the streets of Manchester in 1877 and by 1901 were taken over and electrified by Manchester Corporation Tramways. The system grew to the third largest in the UK but was abandoned in 1949. Proposals for a light rail system in the city grew from a 1970s proposal by SELNEC to build three rapid transit lines. This idea was superseded by the Picc-Vic project but light-rail was resurrected again in the 1980s; it was these proposals which led to the creation of the Metrolink, the first routes of which were opened in 1992.
  Plans to extend Metrolink were reinstated after an election-time u-turn by the Labour Government which had rejected the plans months earlier, despite years of support. The Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive led the fight to ensure that the extensions be built, with significant support from local councils and communities and Manchester City Council. In July 2006, the government announced a major extension to the Metrolink system, which is intended to form the first phase of the so-called 'big bang' expansion. If the eventual desired system is completed, passenger numbers are predicted to more than double to an estimated 50 million per year.
  Since the initial approval of the system from the public, local and national government, and environmental groups, Metrolink has become something of a victim of its own popularity. Many routes are extremely busy, especially at peak times, and prices have risen at far above the rate of inflation. The network has also gained a reputation for being somewhat unreliable. In 2011, Stagecoach Group who operated the Metrolink under contract to Transport for Greater Manchester, sold the contract to the RATP Group.
caption: A Bombardier M5000 tram introduced in 2009
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