Lisbon's municipal government wished to develop urban transit and granted concessions to build and operate various systems that included funiculars and tramways.

The vehicles, called americanos after their point of origin,[3]: 1–2  were initially deployed in the flat parts of the city where animals were capable of hauling their passenger loads.

To surmount the steep slopes where draft animal conveyance was impossible, funiculars were envisioned in proposals made to the municipal government in 1882.

This inaugurated the era of cable-driven transport, but the technology of electrical generation, transmission and power was developing concurrently and would eventually supersede it.

[4]: 128–134 The first line, put into operation on 15 August 1890, was 1.7 kilometres (1.1 mi) long and ran from Praça Camões to Largo da Estrela.

Aside from the obvious tourist attraction, those lines are still important because sections of the city's topography can only be crossed by small trams.

Tram 15 also connects the entire western riverfront of the city to the centre and allows a better link for passengers with the bus system towards an area that still is not served by the metro.

Although reports prepared by both the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and the Verkehrsbetriebe Zürich concluded that the network should be retained and even extended, the process of decline continued until 1997, with the closing of the Alto de São João branch and the Arco Cego depot.

In an apparent reversal of policy, the mayor (president of the city council) of Lisbon, Fernando Medina, announced in December 2016 that tram 24 would be restored to service in 2017 between Cais do Sodré and Campolide, saying that it was a mistake to reduce the city's network of electric trams and that work would be undertaken to reconstruct it.

[9] Carris originally said this was not a priority, but its 2018 Activity and Budget Plan[10] provides for the purchase in 2020-2021 of: On 24 April 2018, Line 24 was reopened, albeit initially between Camões and Campolide only.