{"id":63684,"date":"2026-07-08T18:00:54","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T17:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=63684"},"modified":"2026-07-07T19:27:02","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T18:27:02","slug":"uk-light-rail-conference-celebrates-20-years-of-progress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=63684","title":{"rendered":"UK Light Rail Conference celebrates 20 years of progress"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The UK Light Rail Conference took place in Nottingham during late June 2026. This was the 20<sup>th<\/sup> anniversary of the first event taking place and saw more than 350 delegates reflecting on two decades of progress, and looking ahead to the future.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Taking place over two days, topics such as network expansion, innovation, digital transformation, customer experience, safety and workforce development were discussed as delegates heard how light plays an important role in the future of public transport in the UK.<\/p>\n<p>Rail Minister Lord Hendy outlined how the government were committed to integrated transport whilst there were presentations which examined the future of networks in Nottingham, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Coventry, Tyne and Wear, Edinburgh, and Dublin amongst others.<\/p>\n<p>There was also a panel session which explored how the light rail sector can develop its future workforce. This highlighted opportunities beyond engineering and operations, including roles in communications, project management, sustainability, customer experience, digital technology, planning and finance.<\/p>\n<p>UKTram also attended the event with Managing Director James Hammett commenting: \u201cReturning to Nottingham for the conference\u2019s twentieth anniversary provided a fantastic opportunity to reflect on just how far both UKTram, LRSSB and the wider light rail sector have come. What stood out most over the two days was the optimism and ambition across the industry. There is real momentum behind light rail, with organisations working together to share knowledge, develop new ideas and support future investment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe also recognised that investing in infrastructure means investing in people. If we want the sector to continue growing, we need to ensure the next generation understands the opportunities available and sees light rail as an exciting, long-term career.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The UK Light Rail Conference took place in Nottingham during late June 2026. This was the 20th anniversary of the first event taking place and saw more than 350 delegates reflecting on two decades of progress, and looking ahead to &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=63684\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[97],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63684"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63684"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63685,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63684\/revisions\/63685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}