Welcome in our community! No issues with you speaking in English - most of us understand and if not, there are translators available. Looking forward to any info you'd like to share about Chinese public transport!

Antonwoods wrote here:
If you have any questions about China that you would like to know, pls feel free to contact me and I am happy to answer them.

Welcome! Personally, I'm curious about urban tram and trolleybus systems in China.

We've seen some new tram* systems being built in the last 10 years, with some appearing to not be so successful and even being destroyed altogether. Are there successful tram systems in China? What about trolleybus systems? Are there any of them being extended or planned for extension? Is the trolleybus dying in China as well (since China is one of the biggest eBuses producer) as it is, sadly, in the western world (with small exceptions such as Prague which has recently revived its long-dead trolleybus)?

Thanks! Can't wait to hear your thoughts on this.


*not trackless trams which are still a gadget technology from my point of view with no real benefits - yet! Maybe time will prove me wrong.

Hello, bro. Thank u for your welcome.

This is a good question. But due to China's large size and many many cities, this question may need to be divided into several posts to fully answer. So, please allow me to briefly answer your question first (I will explain the details later).


Let me first answer the question about trolleybus in this post.

About 30 cities in China, including coal mines, once had trolleybus systems. But now there are currently 12 cities and 1 coal mine. Obviously, these 12 cities include several Chinese cities that Westerners are familiar with: Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. Among these cities, only Beijing's trolleybus scale is still expanding (but the expansion speed is still very slow).


And then, the tram.

In fact, in recent years, China has been more enthusiastic about building new subways, most of which are located underground and have steel wheels similar to trains, as well as monorails with rubber wheels (such as Chongqing Rail Transit Line 2). But most importantly, these 'subways' all have highly independent road rights. In contrast, trams, especially those built in urban areas, are often built on the ground and need to wait for red lights like buses. Unlike Romania, the Chinese government does not consider trams as public transportation on par with buses. The most obvious sign is that most of China's trams have their own names (yes, "name"), not route numbers. Most of these trams are built in the new urban areas, and the surrounding commercial and residential areas are not well-developed. And most of them only have one route, which prevents them from utilizing the scale effect to bring in more passengers. So, as you know, the tram in Zhuhai (Chinese name of this city: 珠海) has been dismantled. But there are also some newly built trams in cities that have a lot of passenger flow due to full consideration of future urban development trends. I will introduce it in the future.

Let's keep this topic focused on the public transportation in China. All other discussions have been deemed irrelevant and have been deleted. Any more Q&A with the moderators should continue here https://forum.metrouusor.com/ViewTopic?p ... ByPostId in either English or Romanian.

A final hint to @Antonwoods - if you are replying to the latest message, then we do not encourage quoting it - it is self-implied that you are replying to the last message. You may still use quotes to refer to messages or parts of messages that are older.

For the trolleybus (无轨电车), I will list the existing 12 cities and 1 coal mine:
Beijing (北京市)
Shanghai (上海市)
Guangzhou, Guangdong Province (广东省，广州市)
Wuhan, Hubei Province (湖北省，武汉市)
Taiyuan, Shanxi Province (山西省，太原市)
Dalian, Liaoning Province (辽宁省，大连市)
Qingdao, Shandong Province (山东省，青岛市)
Jinan, Shandong Province (山东省，济南市)
Zhengzhou, Henan Province (河南省，郑州市)
Luoyang, Henan Province (河南省，洛阳市)
Baoding, Hebei Province (河北省，保定市)
Xiangyuan Wuyang Coal Mine, Changzhi, Shanxi Province (山西省，长治市，襄垣五阳煤矿)

P.S.: The parentheses are the Chinese names of these cities, with the name of the province before them, which have reverse order of English.

Among these cities, the trolleybuses in Luoyang (洛阳市) are actually operated as electric buses - they have pantographs, but they are not hung on overhead lines.
The  trolleybuses in Baoding (保定市) is only used as a commuter bus for a company and will not participate in the operation of city bus routes.

BTW, marking the Chinese names of these cities can help you find more information on the Internet. You just need to search for the city name with "无轨电车", such as "北京无轨电车", which means Beijing Trolleybus in Chinese.

Most Chinese people believe that trolleybuses are buses with a pantograph, rather than trams without tracks. Therefore, in China, trams can have yellow (or yellow green) license plates just like normal buses.

However, it was only in recent years that a consensus was reached on the models of trolleybuses, which regard trolleybus as a type of special vehicle. In earlier years, there was a wide variety of models of trolleybuses in China, with almost no rule. In contrast, Chinese buses have had a set of model naming standards for a long time (since 1988). If you are interested in the models of Chinese buses, I will also introduce this content in the future

Currently, there are several brands of trolleybus operating in China:

YUTONG (宇通)
ZHONGTONG (中通)
FOTON (福田)
SUNWIN (申沃)
YOUNG MAN (青年)
YANGZIJIANG (扬子江)
HUAYU (华宇)

Among these brands, YUTONG, ZHONGTONG, SUNWIN and FOTON has the ability to manufacture trolleybus.
YOUNG MAN has already gone bankrupt. While YANGZIJIANG filed for bankruptcy in 2018, but just last month it launched a new product. There are reports that capital from Hong Kong has re-acquired this brand.
HUAYU is the brand of Beijing Public Transport Corporation Trolleybus Manufacturing and Assembly Plant. Although this brand still exists, the actual manufacturer is FOTON.

It is worth mentioning that, although the number of cities with trolleybuses has significantly decreased is not due to the popularity of electric buses, electric buses have indeed affected many cities that still have trolleybuses nowadays. The former is due to the massive urban renewal that most of China's major cities have undergone since entering the 21st century. The old city area has been demolished, while the original roads have been widened, accompanied by the dismantling of overhead lines. For cities that have not undergone large-scale urban renewal, such as my hometown Harbin, have also participated in this campaign to dismantle overhead lines. The reason for dismantling is absurd, as city managers believe that the overhead lines are not aesthetically pleasing enough.

In the summer of 2020, I tried to search for and use my camera to record the ruins of the overhead lines in this city, as shown in the following picture.

Antonwoods wrote here:
Therefore, in China, trams can have yellow (or yellow green) license plates just like normal buses.

Correction: "trams" in this sentence shoule be "trolleybus"

Antonwoods wrote here:
The reason for dismantling is absurd, as city managers believe that the overhead lines are not aesthetically pleasing enough.

We get that over here as well, quite a lot ... it's stupid since
1. it's infrastructure, so it's primary goal is to be useful (see Japan's overhead electrical wiring infrastructure all over the streets which became quite a loved visual trademark of Japanese aesthetics).
2. it doesn't have to be visually displeasing, if it's well maintained (see Switzerland).
3. there are other things uglier in terms of infrastructure in the urban environment (such that urban highways which are noisy, dusty and polluting).
4. should aesthetics be more important than pollution?

Oh well, same narrow-minded politicians all over the world.