Trial operation for Tramway extension from Athens to Piraeus port begins

Following a lengthy construction period that lasted about 5.5 years, Tramway's extension to Piraeus is about to begin re-introducing the Tram in the city after nearly 40 years, Nikos Karagiannis reports in ypodomes.com

These passenger-free itineraries will continue for 5 to 6 months, and since all tests are successful, the extension will be released to commercial operation, shortly after.

The construction of the extension from the current terminal station, the Peace and Friendship Stadium (SEF) in Faliron had been full of problems. The signing of the contract (contractor: THEMELI) took place in January 2013. The initial timeline of the project was 25 months (the same applied for all Tram projects worldwide).

If the extension operates in the first 6 months of next year, the total duration of the project will have been 3 times longer than predicted.

The extension faced plently of the structural problems related the country's projects, in general. The completion of traffic studies lasted about 2 years (that is, the initial timeline of the whole project!) while archaeological findings were everywhere throughout the course of the construction works.

Extension's operation to change the "transportation map" of Piraeus

The expected operation of the Tram in the next Spring will change the "transportation map" of Piraeus and the Tram itself as a means of transport. The advent of the Tram in the center and the Port of the city, will cover many travel needs and will also enable a partial restructuring of bus lines, thus alleviating traffic loads.

After the operation of the extension, the Tram itself will, at last, reach a significant destination since it was considered to be "blind" due to its lack of direct connectivity to a major urban point of interest. It is noteworthy that the majority of passengers that use usually have as their final destination, the city of Piraeus.

According to older studies, the extension of the Tramway in the center and the Port of Piraeus will add about 25,000 new passengers, upgrading its importance and making it the principal means of transportation for accessing the center of the capital.

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