Nottingham Express Transit
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Image:Nottingham-express-transit.jpg
Nottingham Express Transit (NET) is a light-rail tramway serving the Nottingham area in England. Its first line opened to the public on 9 March 2004, having cost £200 million to construct. The scheme took 16 years from conception to implementation.
The route of the current line starts at Nottingham station to the south of the city centre, and extends north, passing the Lace Market, Nottingham Trent University, Forest Recreation Ground, and eventually arriving at Hucknall.
This line is 14 km long, of which 4 km is on-street, generally in dedicated lanes. A little north of the city centre is a section about 1 km long where northbound and southbound trams follow different streets. From Wilkinson Street north (for about 8 km), the tramline runs alongside an existing railway, the Robin Hood Line. At Highbury Vale, about halfway along the line, a branch turns west to end 1 km later at Phoenix Park, while the main line runs north to Hucknall. There are park-and-ride facilities at several stations.
The system has fifteen long Incentro articulated low-floor trams similar to the model used in Nantes, built by Bombardier Transportation (formerly ADtranz); the Flexity Outlook Eurotram was also considered, but rejected as its large single-leaf doors did not comply with British door-alarm regulations. Tickets are sold on board the tram by a conductor. As of 31 January 2005, there are trams every five minutes during peak times, running alternately to Hucknall and Phoenix Park. Plans are afoot to extend this peak service from 7.30 to 18.30 every day.
There are also plans for extensions, which would consist of two new lines from the city centre - one going south-west to Chilwell, via the University of Nottingham and Beeston and then on to Toton/Stapleford, where a Park and Ride scheme near the A52 is intended to draw traffic away from Nottingham city centre. The other is south to Clifton by Wilford. Work on these lines, each of which would be attached to one of the existing system's two branches, is expected to begin in 2006, in two phases. The tram scheme aims to reduce the number of car journeys into Nottingham by four million per annum. The tram runs on 750 volts of direct current and has a top speed of 50mph. They are currently 15 trams in the fleet. The tram also has a connection with Central Trains.
The system is arguably the only 'new' tram system built in the UK to have been an instant success. Whilst others around the UK are now starting to carry the number of passengers that it was hoped for, Notingham's system has smashed even the most optomistic of predictions, carrying 9.7 million people in 2005. This is an extremely strong case for the construction of the new lines, and Nottingham is an excellent showcase for how to do integrated transport.
Route
Image:NottinghamExpressTransit-Line1-Map.svg
Main branch to Hucknall
|
Phoenix Park branch
|
Routes join
- Highbury Vale
- David Lane
- Basford
- Wilkinson Street (park and ride)
| Southbound route | Northbound route |
Routes rejoin
- The Forest (for Forest Recreation Ground, park and ride)
- High School
- Nottingham Trent University (for Nottingham Trent University)
- Royal Centre
- Old Market Square
- Lace Market
- Station Street (for Nottingham railway station)
External links
- Nottingham Express Transit - official web site
- NET Phase Two - official web site for future extensions
- Collection of Google Earth locations of Nottingham Express Transit stops (Requires Google Earth software) from the Google Earth Community forum.
| Local rail transport in the United Kingdom | |
|---|---|
| Metros : | Docklands Light Railway (East London) | Glasgow Subway | London Underground | Tyne and Wear Metro |
| Tramways : | Blackpool | Manchester | Midland Metro (West Midlands) | Nottingham | Sheffield | Tramlink (South London) |