Worldwide: number of cities with light rail systems by region 2021
As of 2021, over 400 cities worldwide have developed functioning light rail and tram (LRT) systems. This represents an upswing in the number of worldwide LRT systems in use after a long period of decline during the second half of the 20th century. Currently, Europe holds the largest share with just over 200 cities having operational LRT systems. Eurasia comes in second with nearly half the number of cities as Europe. Asia-Pacific and North America, with 48 and 40 cities respectively, come in third. Finally, the MENA, Latin-America, and Africa regions come in last with 12, 8, and 2 cities respectively.
This data is nearly proportional to the length of LRT systems infrastructure in each region; although the order of North America and Eurasia is reversed, where North America has more active length of LRT systems infrastructure. Despite the fact that the population of Africa is nearly double that of Europe, it has nearly 1% of the number of cities with LRT systems that Europe has. This shows that even though the use of LRT systems is on the rise worldwide, it is much more developed in Europe and Eurasia as compared with the rest of the world, with those 2 regions alone carrying nearly three-quarters of the number of cities with LRT systems worldwide.
This data is nearly proportional to the length of LRT systems infrastructure in each region; although the order of North America and Eurasia is reversed, where North America has more active length of LRT systems infrastructure. Despite the fact that the population of Africa is nearly double that of Europe, it has nearly 1% of the number of cities with LRT systems that Europe has. This shows that even though the use of LRT systems is on the rise worldwide, it is much more developed in Europe and Eurasia as compared with the rest of the world, with those 2 regions alone carrying nearly three-quarters of the number of cities with LRT systems worldwide.
