In August 2021, public transport in Tampere upgraded with Finland’s second tramline system, made possible in part by MuniFin’s green bonds. Celebrating the 10th anniversary of green finance, we take stock of major green projects and check in on Tampere. Closing in on its own five-year anniversary, how has the tram been welcomed?
For a long time, the capital Helsinki was the only Finnish city to feature tramlines. As it is a major investment and an upheaval to the cityscape, tramlines for a long time remained exclusive to Helsinki’s streets.
Tampere was one of the candidate cities to build Finland’s second tram system. Finland’s 3rd largest municipality by population and home to 270,000 people, Tampere has historically been an industrial hub and the heart of Finland’s second largest metropolitan area after the capital region.
The idea of trams riding the city’s streets had been floated throughout Tampere’s history since the early 1900s. It took until 2016 for the moment to be right and the city council to approve plans for a two-line tram system. Construction began in 2017 and in 2021 operations began, making Tampere home to Finland’s second tramway and the country’s first modern tram system – more than a hundred years since the idea was first spoken.
The tramway has represented a significant step in developing and electrifying the Tampere public transport system – but it is also something more than that, says Pekka Sirviö, CEO of Tampere Tramway Ltd, the publicly owned company through which the cities of Tampere, Kangasala, Ylöjärvi, and the municipality of Pirkkala govern the tram infrastructure. Sirviö emphasises that the project is about developing not just the city environment, but the whole region.
“The surrounding municipalities have been involved and committed to developing the tram system from the very beginning”, Sirviö explains.
The tram system is expanding – and making a little bit of history in the process. In 2028, Finland will officially see its first municipality served by a tram line as the system expands to the Pirkkala area.
The tramway’s impact on developing the cityscape has exceeded expectations, acknowledges Jukka Lindfors, Director of Urban Environment Planning for the City of Tampere. The development of the city’s central Kaleva district has been markedly better than anticipated, and the tramlines have brought momentum to other development projects in the area. Impact on property values along the routes has also been positive.
“Alongside the tramway, we have been able to improve much of the city’s walking and cycling infrastructure and road safety, as well as green infrastructure and urban biodiversity”, Lindfors describes.
The tramway is for all Tampereans
Over the course of its four-and-a-half year run, the tramway has captured the hearts of the city’s residents. One of the early planning phase goals of the project was to build it into a source of local civic pride, say both Sirviö and Mika Periviita, Director of Public Transport at Nysse, the Tampere Region public transport authority. Surveys suggest this has been achieved with flying colours.
“We survey opinions annually, both among residents living along the route and those outside its catchment area. The most recent results show that 91 per cent of respondents have a positive attitude towards the tram”, Sirviö reports. “We conduct monthly surveys on both the tramlines. In these, NPS has consistently been over 70 – an excellent result.”
The tramway is equally popular when measured by ridership. Prior to the start of operations, the forecast was set at 55,000 daily journeys; the figure currently stands at approximately 75,000 on weekdays. Public transport ridership has grown strongly in general. Before the pandemic in 2019, Nysse recorded 41.2 million annual journeys; in 2025 the figure had risen to 55.8 million. This marks a remarkable growth of over 35 per cent.
“You could say public transport in the Tampere region has reached a new level in recent years. The tramway gave us a strong initial start in the electrification of public transport – and it has also served as excellent marketing for the entire system”, Periviita says with satisfaction.
Population growth channelled to sustainable modes of transportation
The popularity of the tram also has a major bearing on its environmental impact. Despite Tampere’s rapid growth, the increase in personal car use has remained modest. This is no small achievement: traffic is typically the emissions category that cities and municipalities find most difficult to directly influence, notes Jukka Lindfors.
“Population growth has been channelled into public transport and, to an extent, cycling”, Lindfors explains. “With the tramway, we are aiming to make sustainable mobility as easy as possible. When sustainable transport is a genuine alternative, we have a real chance at reducing residents’ dependence on personal cars.”
The tramway project is also linked closely with the city’s diverse climate goals, describes Saara Unnanlahti, Finance Manager for the City of Tampere.
”If we consider the tram from the perspective of the city as its owner, it advances our Carbon-Neutral Tampere 2030 targets, the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and the protection of biodiversity”, Unnanlahti lists. “On all of these fronts, the tramway represents movement in the right direction.”
Although the impact has been positive across many dimensions, the tramway’s environmental impact remains yet to be fully quantified. This is because of the relatively short timeframe: with less than five years of operations, it is still too early to assess emission reductions.
“The growth in public transport ridership is something we can already see. But if we want to understand something like how the carbon footprint develops, we will need to wait a few years more. I believe, however, that more concrete performance indicators will be available by the tramway’s 10th anniversary”, Periviita estimates.
Development moves forward – with full speed
The project is still ongoing in the Tampere region: the tramlines are being extended in two phases. The first extension will conclude by 2028, followed by a second phase that is set to last until 2032. The high passenger volumes are being addressed by adding capacity through a ten-metre extension module.
Although the tram stands out as a flagship project for sustainable mobility, it is backed by a broader development push in the region’s public transport system. And the work is paying off: in early 2026, Nysse ranked first in a ten-city comparison by BEST, the European public transport benchmarking network. 84 per cent of respondents were satisfied with Nysse.
Nysse is improving its trunk bus network and applying lessons learned from the tram’s success to bus services; local rail services are also being developed, Periviita lists. The aim is to keep things on a growth track.
“Our target is for ridership to grow by 3 to 5 per cent each year. We hope to hit a target of 60 million journeys annually in the coming years”, he outlines.