However the system started to decline in scale and service levels in the late 90s and throughout the 2000s with the fleet shrinking to 150 vehicles in 2012.

Those smaller figures still make it one of the largest systems in operation outside the former Soviet Union countries.

[8] In its first 13 days of operation, the system carried 200,000 passengers, and came to be regarded as eminently suited to Shanghai's busy streets.

In the late 90s a citywide road widening scheme demolished the overheads for Lines 9, 12, 16, 18 and 27.

[15] In February 2017, a number of ordinary bus lines running under the Yan'an Elevated Road was altered and transformed into Yan'an Road Medium Capacity Bus Transit System, or route 71路, a trolleybus bus rapid transit line running in the reserved lanes in the center of Yan'an Road.

On 28 July 2021, the Shanghai road transport department raised the issue of 'optimising' the traditional trolleybus network, which will result in the removal of all infrastructure on routes 6, 8, 13, 22, 25 and 28 to balance between historical value and space taken by wires.

These used chassis built by Railless Electric Traction, in England, and fitted with motors and controllers supplied by Dick, Kerr & Company.

Shipped to China in 1914, they were then fitted with bodies fabricated locally by the Shanghai Electric Construction Company, the system's operator at the time.

In 1922, the company purchased another seven Railless chassis with propulsion by English Electric (which had taken over Dick, Kerr & Company in 1919), and fitted them with locally built bodies, to an improved design for which the solitary all-British-built vehicle may have served, in effect, as a pattern.

The SK663 remained in production until 1969, replaced in 1970 by the SK561G, and later by a succession of newer models of articulated trolleybus.

[10] Several years later, the operator began purchasing new two-axle trolleybuses, and these gradually replaced all of the articulated vehicles.

[26] In January 2022, a voting was held online for netizens to choose the design of newer Sunwin trolleybuses.

[27] The contest ended with a retro design being chosen, and the new trolleybuses entered service in September that year.