Tvärbanan is a light-rail line in

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

. Its name literally translates to ''The transverse line'', as it operates crosswise to the otherwise radial metro and commuter rail lines of Stockholm. It links together several transit lines through its connections with the southern, western and northern subway branches of the

Stockholm Metro The Stockholm metro ( sv, Stockholms tunnelbana) is a rapid transit system in Stockholm, Sweden. The first line opened in 1950, and today the system has 100 stations in use, of which 47 are underground and 53 above ground. There are three colou ...

(''Tunnelbana'') as well as three branches of the

Stockholm commuter rail Stockholm commuter rail ( sv, Stockholms pendeltåg) is the commuter rail system in Stockholm County, Sweden. The system is an important part of the public transport in Stockholm, and is controlled by Storstockholms Lokaltrafik. The tracks are ...

(''Pendeltåg''). The possibility to travel between southern, western and northern greater Stockholm without having to enter the city centre significantly reduces the number of transit passengers, also reducing the number of trains having to pass through the

Old Town In a city or town, the old town is its historic or original core. Although the city is usually larger in its present form, many cities have redesignated this part of the city to commemorate its origins after thorough renovations. There are ma ...

bottleneck during peak hours. Near Liljeholmen the track is shared with freight traffic for a short section, this being the only place in Sweden where freight traffic and trams share the same track. The tramway is separated from roads in most parts, but there are sections in

Gröndal Gröndal (''Green Valley'') is a district of the Hägersten-Liljeholmen borough in Söderort, the southern suburban part of Stockholm. The name Gröndal means Green Dale or Green Valley. Gröndal developed as a working class and industrial subur ...

Sundbyberg Sundbyberg Municipality (''Sundbybergs kommun'' or ''Sundbybergs stad'') is a municipality in Stockholm County in east central Sweden, just north of the capital Stockholm. Sundbyberg is wholly within the Stockholm urban area and has a 100% urban p ...

and

Solna Solna Municipality ( sv, Solna kommun or , ) is a municipality in Stockholm County in Sweden, located just north of Stockholm City Centre. Its seat is located in the town of Solna, which is a part of the Stockholm urban area. Solna is one of t ...

where the tracks run on roads among regular road traffic. In

Hammarby sjöstad Hammarby Sjöstad is a part of the inner city of Stockholm, currently undergoing major urban redevelopment. It is located on both sides of lake Hammarby Sjö, bordering Nacka Municipality to the east. The area is part of the districts Södermalm ...

the trams run in a reservation in the centre of the road rather than in mixed traffic, but there are several

level crossing A level crossing is an intersection where a railway line crosses a road, Trail, path, or (in rare situations) airport runway, at the same level, as opposed to the railway line crossing over or under using an Overpass#Railway, overpass ...

s. Traffic on Tvärbanan started in 2000, first between Gullmarsplan and

Liljeholmen Liljeholmen is a district of the Hägersten-Liljeholmen borough in Söderort, the southern suburban part of Stockholm. History In 1860 Liljeholmen became the first suburb outside Stockholm city limits. The district was then one of two self-gov ...

, then later between Liljeholmen and

Alvik Alvik is a residential district in western Stockholm municipality and part of the Bromma borough. The Alvik outdoor Metro station in adjacent Traneberg was opened in 1952 and is also a connection to the Tvärbanan light railway and the Nockeby ...

, in 2002 between Gullmarsplan and Sickla Udde, and in 2013 between Alvik and

Solna centrum Solna centrum is a shopping mall and metro station in Solna Municipality, approximately from central Stockholm, Sweden. It is close to the Friends Arena and opened on 31 August 1975 as part the first stretch of the Blue Line between T-Centralen a ...

. It has later been extended to Solna Station (2014), Sickla (2017) and most recently, Bromma Airport (2021), the last of which being the first part of the new Kista branch. Tvärbanan was used by around 108,000 passengers per weekday in 2019. The bridges used by Tvärbanan include

Alviksbron Alviksbron ( Swedish for ''The Alvik Bridge'') is a box girder bridge in central Stockholm, Sweden. Stretching over Oxhålssundet, it connects Stora Essingen island to the western suburb Bromma. Built 1996-1998 by the Nordic Construction Company ...

Gröndalsbron Gröndalsbron ( sv, The Gröndal bridge) are two bridges in central Stockholm, Sweden, connecting the island Stora Essingen to the southern mainland district Gröndal. The older bridge, inaugurated in 1967, forms a 460-metre section of the Essi ...

Fredriksdalsbron Fredriksdalsbron is a bridge in central Stockholm, Sweden. Serving the light rail line Tvärbanan, it stretches north from the station west of the Gullmarsplan metro station, immediately makes a sharp eastward turn to plunge under two other br ...

and .

Lines

Tvärbanan has two lines (30 and 31). L30 with 26 stops, going from Sickla south of the Stockholm city centre through Gullmarsplan, ,

Stora Essingen Stora Essingen is an island and a district in the Kungsholmen borough in Stockholm, Sweden. It is located adjacent to Lilla Essingen on Lake Mälaren. Both Essingen Islands are mainly residential areas. Stora Essingen is scattered with private ...

west of the city centre, and

. The part to Solna Centrum opened 28 October 2013, and the final part to Solna Station opened 18 August 2014. A single-stop extension from Sickla udde to Sickla opened on 2 October 2017. The

Friends Arena Nationalarenan, currently known as Friends Arena for sponsorship reasons, is a retractable roof multi-purpose stadium in Stockholm, Sweden. Located next to the lake Råstasjön in Solna, just north of the City Centre, it is the biggest stadium in ...

can be reached within 15 minutes' walk from there.

Bromma Airport Bromma Stockholm Airport (formerly Stockholm-Bromma Flygplats) is a Swedish domestic and minor international airport in Stockholm. It is located west-northwest of downtown Stockholm and is the closest to the city compared to the other commerci ...

is a 600-metre walk from Karlsbodavägen stop.

Main interchange options

* Solna Station **Commuter rail lines 40, 41, 42 *

**Metro blue line 11 * Sundbybergs centrum **Metro blue line 10 **Commuter rail lines 43, 44 *

Metro green lines 17, 18 and 19 **

Nockebybanan Nockebybanan is a tram line between Nockeby and Alvik in the western suburbs of Stockholm, Sweden. The long line is part of the Storstockholms Lokaltrafik public transport network, and connects with the Stockholm metro and Tvärbanan tram at Alv ...

(light rail line 12) *

**Metro red lines 13 and 14 * Årstaberg **Commuter rail lines 40, 41, 42, 43 and 44 * Gullmarsplan **Metro green lines 17, 18 and 19 **A large number of bus routes to Tyresö,

Haninge Haninge Municipality (''Haninge kommun'') is a municipality in Stockholm County in east central Sweden. Its seat is located in Handen, a part of the Stockholm urban area. Haninge Municipality was formed in 1971 when ''Västerhaninge'' and ''Öst ...

, Årsta and

Södermalm Södermalm, often shortened to just Söder, is a district and island in central Stockholm. Overview The district covers the large island of the same name (formerly called ''Åsön''). Although Södermalm usually is considered an island, wat ...

*Sickla **

Saltsjöbanan Saltsjöbanan is an electrified suburban rail system between Stockholm and Saltsjöbaden in Nacka, Sweden. It is in length and has eighteen stations in use. An average of 17,200 boardings are made on an ordinary workday (2019). The line is ...

(suburban rail line 25)

Rolling stock

Thirty-seven

Bombardier Flexity Swift The Bombardier Flexity Swift is a series of urban and inter-urban tram, light rail and light metro vehicles manufactured by Bombardier Transportation. It is part of the Bombardier Flexity family of rail vehicles, and like the others, Flexity S ...

low-floor trams run on the line (locally called A32). Six of them (432-437) are second hand and imported in 2010 from the

RijnGouweLijn The RijnGouweLijn ( en, The Rhine-Gouwe Line), or RGL, was a proposed light rail project in South Holland, Netherlands, that used some new tracks and some existing tracks from the Gouda–Alphen aan den Rijn railway and the Woerden–Leide ...

-project in the Netherlands. Fifteen new trams were ordered from CAF (locally called A35) and they started operation in October 2013 on the Solna extension.

Signalling system

A signalling system monitors and controls the movements of rolling stock on a rail network to ensure safe operation. Tvärbanan previously suffered from a long-standing issue of incompatible and low performing rail

signalling systems Railway signalling (), also called railroad signaling (), is a system used to control the movement of railway traffic. Trains move on fixed rails, making them uniquely susceptible to collision. This susceptibility is exacerbated by the enormou ...

. The Tvärbanan network featured multiple different signalling systems from different vendors, because when the rail line was built, the signalling systems were tendered separately for each construction stage. A visible example of this was at the Alvik station, which was a break point between two systems. Even though the line runs straight at Alvik, the same train could not be run past the station because of the incompatibility of the systems. Passengers had to switch trains there. The section south of Alvik was closed during the summer of 2017 to upgrade the signalling.

Extension

Construction on a branch line to

Kista Kista () is a district in the borough of Rinkeby-Kista, Stockholm, Sweden. It has a strategic position located in between Sweden's main airport, the Stockholm-Arlanda International Airport and central Stockholm, and alongside the main nationa ...

and Helenelund started in February 2018. The new branch was scheduled to open its first part to

in December 2020, however this was postponed, as approval from

Swedavia Swedavia AB is a Swedish state-owned company, which owns and operates ten of airports of Sweden, Sweden's busiest airports. It has its head office at the air traffic control tower of Stockholm-Arlanda Airport in Sigtuna Municipality near Stockholm ...

was needed in order for the trams to be able to run past the airport. In cold weather, sparks arise from the trams' overhead contact line, which could disrupt radio signals in the air traffic control tower at Bromma Airport. Tests needed to be carried out in sub-zero temperatures to gain approval for traffic. The first part of the new branch opened on 17 May 2021, with trams running on Line 31 between Alviks strand and Bromma flygplats.

New Stops

Bromma Blocks

File:Tvärbanan Bromma Blocks May 2021 12.jpg File:Tvärbanan Bromma Blocks May 2021 13.jpg File:Tvärbanan Bromma Blocks May 2021 14.jpg File:Tvärbanan Bromma Blocks May 2021 03.jpg File:Tvärbanan Bromma Blocks May 2021 02.jpg

Bromma flygplats

File:Tvärbanan Bromma flygplats May 2021 03.jpg File:Tvärbanan Bromma flygplats May 2021 01.jpg File:Tvärbanan Bromma flygplats May 2021 02.jpg File:Bromma flygplats tvärbanan feb2021-01.jpg

Gallery

File:Årstadal Tvärbanan Mar 21.jpg, Årstadal File:Bf Alvik (unten), doppelte Gleisverbindung Ri. Gröndal.jpg, Tunnel Near Alvik File:Tvärbanan, Tranebergstunneln, 2016a.jpg, Tram Near Traneberg Tunnel File:Tvärbanan 2.jpg, Tram Arriving at Alvik File:Tvärbanan 2013a.JPG, CAF A35 Interior File:Bf Stora Essingen 2, ET 412.jpg, Stora Essingen File:Tvärbanan, Tranebergstunneln, 2016b.jpg, Tram Near Traneberg Tunnel File:Tvärbana Johannesfred 2012.jpg, Johannesfred File:Liljeholmen tvarbana.jpg, Tram Near Liljeholmen File:Globen subway and tvärbanan station.JPG, Globen

References

External links

Simplified line map
- Official site (Swedish)
Storstockholms Lokaltrafik (Stockholm Transport)
- Official site (Swedish)
Stockholm county's page about Tvärbanan
- Official site (Swedish) {{DEFAULTSORT:Tvarbanan Rail transport in Stockholm Tram transport in Sweden Light rail in Sweden 2000 establishments in Sweden