First metre gauge Alstom Citadis delivered to Lille

In 2024 Ilévia, the public transport authority for the French city of Lille, ordered 24 Alstom Citadis 405 100% low-floor trams, an order later increased to 27. These are to replace the existing fleet of 24 Ansaldo Breda trams dating from the 1990s on the Mongy tramway, a two-line 18km metre-gauge system linking Lille with Roubaix and Tourcoing created in 1909, the oldest interurban tramway in France, with a largely reserved-track layout, that survived the mass closure of French tramways in the 1950s. 26 March 2026 saw the delivery of the first of these five-section 32.4m trams that have a contract price of EUR 4.62M each. They are part of a larger investment programme of EUR 276M to improve public transport in the greater Lille area, and will start to enter service this summer.  

 

The new trams are based on the well-known Citadis platform that has equipped many new French tramways over the last 25 years, but are adapted as the first of this type to run on metre-gauge. Previous standard-gauge cars are under delivery to Nantes, Strasbourg and Paris. The Lille trams, carrying up to 196 passengers each, will offer a 20% increase in capacity compared to the existing fleet.