The Innsbruck tram network is currently organised over six routes (numbered 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, and STB) and has a total length of 44 kilometres (27 mi).

[citation needed] Electrification of the service dates back to 1905, which was rather late by comparison to cities of similar size elsewhere in Austria.

Passenger numbers increased rapidly and several small unpowered carriages were taken from the (still at this stage steam powered) L.B.I.H.i.T railway, to be used in combination with the new tramcars for the city tram services.

The opening in 1906 of the Hungerburg funicular provided a reason for a further extension of the tram network and also the occasion for arguments involving the city council over the route to be followed.

For the newly electrified Line 4, eight four-axle powered tramcars were ordered from the Graz railcar company, and these took over the identity numbers 1–8 from the steam locomotives which they replaced.

The idea dated back at least to 1908 but had then been deferred, partly due to a lack of suitable street layout, but this was a period of urban expansion and renewal on the eastside of the city.

The streets along the entire route were still not suitable, so initially work was started only on a line extension as far as Pradl, on the eastern side of the city centre.

purchased four secondhand steam-powered tram engines from Geneva in order to free up more electric tramcars for transporting wounded soldiers in the city centre.

Line 3 was extended to the Pradler Cemetery, and more of the remaining single-track stretches of tramline in the city centre were replaced with double track.

In 1930, traffic in Innsbruck switched to driving on the right side of the road, which necessitated numerous costly adaptations to the tram network.

In 1941, old rails were recycled to double the rest of Line 3 and build a new double-track section for it, now extending to Rudolf Greinz Street where a turning loop was created.

This high-capacity tram produced by the Ernesto Breda company of Milan entered service as tramcar No.60; its modern features quickly made it a particular favourite with drivers and passengers alike.

Little by little during the 1950s the newer tramcars from Switzerland were used to replace Innsbruck's original tram fleet, much of which still dated back to the early decades of the 20th century.

Less- antiquated tramcars in the Innsbruck fleet that were not scheduled to be pensioned-off received similar upgrades to their coupling mechanisms and brakes.

The acquisition in 1966 and 1967 of seven Lohner articulated trams, similar to those being introduced in Vienna around the same time, and numbered 71–77, made it possible to retire the last of the old pre-war Innsbruck powered tramcars.

The detailed improvements to the street layouts which the plan envisaged involved a costly list of track rearrangements and realignments: consideration was given to replacing Innsbruck's trams with Articulated buses.

The necessary changes were implemented during the summer of 1976, following which the network was configured as follows:[7] The urban transport administrative offices at the Bergisel Station were considered badly outdated.

[9] By 1980, the launch of the city's Transport concept (Verkehrskonzept) signaled a realisation that oil prices could not be expected to return to 1960s levels: trams were no longer so readily to be written off as yesterday's solutions.

To service this expansion new six- and eight-axle articulated tramcars were purchased from Bielefeld, and a large new tram depot would be built.

In 1980, therefore, the transport authority decided to buy fourteen second-hand trams from Bielefeld, some for use on Line 6 and to support its extension to the Hungerburg funicular.

In 1996, Line 6 was threatened with closure not for the first time, but the financial support needed to keep it running was found following a deluge of signatures targeting the city authorities.

The decision of the city authorities, in 1999, to retain and expand the tram network triggered an ongoing programme of construction and renovation.

After this, there remained in Innsbruck only four of the old DÜWAG articulated trams which had formed the backbone of the city fleet during the closing years of the 20th century.

Tram transport gained rapid acceptance in Innsbruck after 1905 and passenger growth was strong, requiring investment in additional new tramcars.

Staff shortages were caused by personnel being called up for military service in 1914, which enforced an initial falling off in tram use, but once new staff, including women, had been recruited the staffing issue was addressed, while increasingly inventive solutions were found for the shortages of replacement parts caused by the military redeployment of heavy industry.

During the middle 1930s passenger numbers sank in response to the reduced living standards and incomes that followed the economic crash at the start of the decade.

However, war had resumed the previous year: wartime materials shortages meant that the trams ordered in 1940 could not be delivered.

During the final years of the war air raids and the deteriorating availability of replacement parts caused cut-backs, and passenger numbers probably declined, but data for 1944 and 1945 has not been accessed.

During the 1950s and 1960s there was a massive surge in private car ownership, and with almost all of the city's tramcars fifty or more years old it was hard to attract investment in the network.

Higher oil prices and growing city centre traffic congestion changed minds in the 1970s, and the major modernisation programme launched at the time of the 1976 Winter Olympics triggered a sustained increase in passenger numbers during the 1970s,[10] which then reached a plateau in the early 1980s.