Free trams for Hogmanay

Posted on Friday 21 October 2016 by Gareth Prior

Edinburgh Trams will be providing a free service from midnight on Saturday 31st December until 0500 on Sunday 1s January 2017 to help the thousands of revellers who attend the famous Hogmanay celebrations in the Scottish capital get home safely at the end of the event. Trams will run every 20 minutes between West End Princes Street and Edinburgh Airport. Additional staff will also be present at stops and on board trams to help passengers.

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3 Responses to Free trams for Hogmanay

  1. Christopher Callan says:
    Friday 21 October 2016 at 21:18

    Appreciate politically Edinburgh Tram Project has been dogged by fairly vociferous and at times entirely justified criticism but seems rather expensive luxury to be handing out free travel. Pros & Cons about it. Mixed feelings. May covert folk to the tramway. May help demonstrate how the system can play greater role in the transport offering.

    • Peter Watts says:
      Saturday 22 October 2016 at 10:21

      No “Pros and Cons” to this, only pros. It is not just the trams which are free, but also the night buses from 0h15 until 04h00. This is the same principle that London uses, and which having first hand experience of, is an excellent idea to shift the enormous crowds. Edinburgh’s Hogmanay celebrations draw the second biggest crowds after London and this type of forward and joined up thinking provides a safe and efficient route back to homes and hotels. You cannot compare this to anything else during the year, and to be taking about it being an “expensive luxury” is a little out of context.

      I for one will be using this facility, as I will be in Edinburgh for these celebrations!

  2. Edward M. Koehler says:
    Friday 21 October 2016 at 23:19

    The LIRR, Metro North, and New Jersey Transit used to do something similar here in New York City. Then people got the idea that they could move the party onto the trains. The result was a massive cleanup of the equipment used causing car shortages and intending passengers seeking other transport. It is no longer done here. Perhaps the story might have been different if the celebrants had been required to get off the trains at the terminal and wait on the platform while the crew reversed the direction of the equipment. Auld lang syne.

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