Tramways from across the British Isles are up for awards at the 2017 Global Light Rail Awards with the winners due to be named at a glittering ceremony on 4th October in London.
The main award of the evening will as always be Operator of the Year and systems from the British Isles dominate this category. Edinburgh Trams, KeolisAmey Docklands (Docklands Light Railway), Pre-Metro Operations (Stourbridge Junction -Stourbridge shuttle) and Transdev Dublin Light Rail (Luas) are all nominated for this award in recognition of their performance over the past 12 months.
There is also a Most Improved System award which again sees nominations exclusively from the British Isles this time in the form of Edinburgh Trams (again) and Midland Metro.
Other awards on the night include Best Customer Initiative (Edinburgh Trams, KeolisAmey Docklands, Tram Barcelona), Employee of the Year (Daniel Patterson – Nottingham Trams, Tom Rowe – National Express/Midland Metro), Team of the Year (CAF Rail UK Edinburgh Tram, Edinburgh Trams, UKTram, West Midlands Combined Authority Metro Development Team), Manufacturer of the Year (Bombardier Transportation, Brookville Equipment Corporation, CAF), Project of the Year under 50m euros (Edinburgh Trams, Nottingham Trams) and Project of the Year over 50m euros (Dallas Area Rapid Transit, KC Streetcar, SETRAM – Sidi Bel Abbes Tramway, Transport for Greater Manchester).
Edinburgh Trams are already celebrating their nominations even before the winners are named with Lea Harrison, Managing Director, saying: “The fact that we’re amongst the finalists in so many categories this year is testament to the hard work of the team over the past 12 months. This is reflected in our efforts to wrap the business around the customer, an approach that’s seen us increase services at peak times, step up operations during the city’s many cultural and sporting events and even run night trams for the first time during the Edinburgh Festival. We’ve also seen customer numbers rise to 5.6 million and turned a profit a year ahead of predictions, whilst also being named as the UK’s number one transport operator for customer satisfaction by the highly respected Transport Focus organisation which gave us a near-perfect 99 per cent rating.”
* A full list of the shortlist can be viewed at http://mainspring.co.uk/light-rail-awards/