Horse-drawn trams On 21 March 1864, the Dutch Tramway Company was founded in The Hague, inaugurating the first tram network in the Netherlands. The first lines in The Hague were
horse-drawn. By 1880, the system had expanded, featuring trams with only a single horse, transporting passengers to destinations like Javastraat and Frederikstraat. In the first half of the 1880s,
steam trams appeared and rapidly replaced the horse-drawn lines, especially in longer services. One of these was the line between The Hague and Delft in July 1887, which is still in service today and extended to Scheveningen Noord. On 17 May 1887, the NV Haagsche Tramweg-Maatschappij (HTM) was formed after acquiring the Belgian company Société Anonyme des Tramways de La Haye, marking the birth of HTM. In August 1904, the first
electrified line went into service; this is now part of line 9 between
Plein and Scheveningen Kurhaus. Most of this line is still part of the line between Vrederust and Scheveningen Noord. Due to numerous technical problems, the battery tram had to give way to the electric longline tram. By 1915,
Scheveningen had become a popular destination for summer beachgoers, leading to long queues at the stop in front of the
Kurhaus at the end of the day. In 1916, when many men were deployed to military service during
World War I, female conductors appeared on trams. The system expanded throughout the 1920s. By 1926, HTM operated 16 tram lines, and the population of The Hague was nearly 410,000. The tram system facilitated over 53 million tram and bus trips annually. However, the economic downturn following the
1929 stock market crash resulted in reduced passenger numbers and fewer ambitions for further expansions. These were more economical and increasingly replaced the larger trams with trailers. In the 1940s, ridership surged, rising from 60 million in 1940 to 138 million in 1943. This memorandum contained plans for a new Central Station, urban rail transit to satellite town Zoetermeer and a proposal including a combination of new tunnels and viaducts to improve tram operations, described as 'semi-metro'. In 1973, The Hague's new
Central Station was opened, to accommodate the growing number of passengers. In 2004, the construction of a tram tunnel under the city centre, around the intersection of Spui, Kalvermarkt and Grote Marktstraat, was completed to address congestion. In 2006, the
RandstadRail network and brand was introduced, connecting The Hague with the
Zoetermeer and
Rotterdam regions. The tram-train lines to
Zoetermeer for the
RandstadRail project opened on 29 October 2006 (line 4) and on 20 October 2007 (line 3) respectively, including the addition of
Beatrixkwartier station.
New lines In 1983, for the first time since WW2, a new tramline was opened: Line 2. At the same time the tram network is restructured: Line 1 from Delft to The Hague city centre was extended to Scheveningen and Line 12 and Line 16 were connected to form a ring line in the city centre. In addition, the
Sijtwendetunnel, featuring one underground station
Oosteinde, was opened in 2010 exclusively for a new Line 19. == Future plans ==