The network is owned and operated by the public citizen company Verkehrsbetrieb Potsdam [de](ViP), and included in the "Berlin C" fare zone (Tarifbereich Berlin C) of the Verkehrsverbund Berlin-Brandenburg.

[1] The network opened on 12 May 1880: It was a horsecar system owned by the society Reymer & Masch, named Potsdamer Straßenbahn-Gesellschaft and consisted of a pair of lines.

At the end of the 1950s, new streetcar models were introduced (typical during the DDR era), the Gothawagen (T57, G4-61, G4-65 and T2-62), produced in the Thuringian town of Gotha by the Gothaer Waggonfabrik.

The timetable of the tram lines are coordinated at the interchange points Potsdam Hauptbahnhof and Babelsberg station with the Berlin S-Bahn.

Exceptions are Glienicker Brücke, which is crossed by a triangular junction, as well as Schloss Charlottenhof, where the tramcars are turned around by a block bypass.