Stadtbahn
One type of transport originated in the 19th century, firstly in Berlin and followed by Vienna, where rail routes were created that could be used independently from other traffic.
By the 1980s virtually all cities had abandoned the long-term goal of establishing a full-scale metro system due to the excessive costs associated with converting the tramways.
The Vienna Stadtbahn was in the beginning a system of heavy rail lines circling the city, free of level crossings, operated by steam trains.
Here Stadtbahn is an underground urban rail network that is used by conventional trams but planned at the outset to be eventually converted into a metro system.
The conflicts that arose between increasing car usage and the existing tramway systems led to the so-called 'second level' concept for future light rail schemes.
The Stadtbahn cities' second level plans faced unexpected complications in the form of lengthy construction work, budgetary problems for tunnel projects, and protests against elevated sections.
At the same time, the smaller cities which had not started Stadtbahn plans reassessed their options in relation to their existing tram systems.
[7][8] East German cities had no 1960s-style Stadtbahn plans in place, and the fleets and the infrastructure were in need of massive investment and improvement.
[clarification needed] A system that is called Stadtbahn today may not have all of the Stadtbahn attributes: barrier-free access, higher cruising speed than tramways, doors on both sides of the train, driver's cabs on both ends, higher operating voltage, wider cars with comfortable seats, and so on.
In 1992 Karlsruhe started an innovative new service, using both heavy and light rail infrastructure, to link the wider region to the city.
The vehicles were designed to comply with technical specifications for the (federal) heavy railway and for light rail (communal tramways).
Straßenbahn (tram) and Stadtbahn in the Karlsruhe region are differentiated more by the nature of their city-border crossings only, and not by the technical dimension (Dual-System Light Rail Vehicles).
They are represented by the 'S' logo that is used for S-Bahn (Stadtschnellbahn) in the rest of Germany and therefore partially conflict with it, as it has acquired a second meaning in Karlsruhe.
As part of the redevelopment of their main city stations, national railway company Deutsche Bahn adopted a new logo to indicate Straßenbahn (tram) connections: a square containing the word 'Tram'.
[9] As the new logos became part of the information systems at more and more main railway stations, an increasing number of cities and public transport operators came to accept and adopt the scheme.
The concept of Regionalstadtbahnen (also known by RegioStadtbahn or other names) arose as a result of the harmonisation or integration of railway lines into Stadtbahn networks.
They also differ in legal status: S-Bahn systems are governed under the rail rules of the Eisenbahn-Bau- und Betriebsordnung (EBO) ('Ordinance on the Construction and Operation of Railways'), while Stadtbahn systems are usually tramways by law governed under the regulations of Verordnung über den Bau und Betrieb der Straßenbahnen (BOStrab) ('Ordinance on the Construction and Operation of Trams').
