On its ninth birthday (trams started running on 31st May 2014) Edinburgh Trams have announced that they have just enjoyed their busiest ever days thanks to Harry Styles! And all this comes before the network expands by almost 3 miles with the Trams to Newhaven extension due to open on 7th June giving more opportunities for travel by tram in the city.
The busiest days ever for Edinburgh Trams were recorded on Friday 26th and Saturday 27th May with fans heading to Harry Styles’ concerts at Murrayfield Stadium helping to boost passenger numbers on the network. Over 100,000 journeys were recorded on these two days – officially the busiest in the nine year history of Edinburgh Trams.
Managing Director of Edinburgh Trams, Lea Harrison, commented: “he records began to tumble on Friday when 50,000 trips were made on the system, nearly three times the daily average. If that wasn’t impressive enough, we were just as busy on Saturday! This new daily patronage record couldn’t have been set at a better time, illustrating the popularity of the city’s trams with both residents and visitors as the clock ticks down to next week’s opening of the new line to Newhaven. The entire Edinburgh Trams team worked extremely hard to ensure fans and other passengers enjoyed safe and convenient travel around the city on concert days, and I would like to say well done to them all for their efforts during what has become another landmark week for the system.”
Its not surprising that so many passengers were carried as the concert at Murrayfield on the Saturday was the highest selling stadium concert in Scotland. Over 65,000 fans attended and as the passenger numbers show a vast majority of these took the advice to let the tram take the strain!
The news of the new high figures was released on the tram networks ninth anniversary. In those nine years the line between the Airport and York Place has proven itself to be a vital part of the transport network in the city and has continued to transport large crowds to special events at locations such as Murrayfield Stadium.