For over 75 years the Association has promoted the development of modern trams and light rail, particularly in the United Kingdom. Our worldwide membership includes many professionally‐involved managers, planners and operators from the public transport industry and from technical businesses as well as enthusiasts.
The Association is a non‐profit making, non‐political organisation.
Advantages of LRTA membership
All members receive Tramways & Urban Transit either by post or online, and can add our quarterly historical magazine Tramway Review to their subscription. Members also have access to a discussion
group.
The LRTA organises occasional special visits to tramway systems; see the Member’s Day page for details.
The LTRA hold meetings in many areas; see the Meetings page for details.
Members benefit from discounted prices for books published by the Association and by a few other publishers.
Above all, you can help us to advocate better public transport in our urban areas as government devolves responsibility for it to local enterprise partnerships.
Campaigning for clean air
One of the main tenets of the LRTA’s work is to highlight the benefits to the environment of Light Rail. Clean air is a main focus of this work.
There are two main transport corridor pollutants
‐ tail pipe emissions
‐ road / tyre / break wear
These particulates are very small and are more formally known as PM10 and PM2.5. Up to 90% of these harmful particles come from non exhaust sources. Cleaning up tail pipe emissions with electric vehicles will not reduce these emissions.
The World Health Organisation and the University of Bath have identified serious health links associated with PM2.5. Hot Spots occur throughout the country. Unsurprisingly in our towns and cities with high traffic density.
Trams: A solution to poor air quality
There is a solution to clean sustainable efficient urban traffic movement ‐ Light Rail or Trams.
Globally there are more 13.5bn light rail passenger journeys a year.
Tram systems running on green electricity are perfect for an urban environment, other countries are tackling the problem.
In 2017 21 completely new systems opened in Algeria, Luxembourg, Denmark and the USA.
The LRTA is calling on the next government and parliament to tackle not just the climate emergency but the clean air emergency for all our futures.