Stockholms Spårvägar

Infobox_Company
company_name = AB Stockholms Spårvägar
company_
company_type = Aktiebolag
company_slogan =
foundation = 1st 1915, renamed in 1967
2nd 1987
location = Stockholm, Sweden
key_people =
num_employees =
products = Public transport
revenue = | homepage = [http://www.ss.se/ www.ss.se]

AB Stockholms Spårvägar (SS) (literally "Stockholm Tramways"), was a company founded in 1915 and owned by the City of Stockholm to coordinate and operate public transportation within the City. In 1967 the public transport in the entire Stockholm County was coordinated and the company changed its name to Storstockholms Lokaltrafik (SL) and its ownership was transferred to the Stockholm County Council.

Traffic with Horse drawn trams began in 1877 with the privately owned "Stockholms Nya Spårvägsaktiebolag" (literally "Stockholm's New Tramway Company") (SNS) and it gained a concession to operate trams on the streets of Stockholm for 40 years. Largely due to geographic factors, its traffic never extended south of Slussen, although they had the option to do so. Another company, "Stockholms Södra Spårvägsaktiebolag" (literally "Stockholm's Southern Tramway Company") (SSB) was started to provide tramway traffic on Södermalm.

The city-owned AB Stockholms Spårvägar was created in 1915 with the aim to coordinate and making the two separate networks more efficient. The SNS network was taken over in 1917 and SSB would follow in 1918. Although the two networks had merged they would not be connected until 1922.

The opening of Västerbron in 1935 caused a major rework of the tram and bus lines when passage through Gamla Stan no longer was mandatory when travelling from Södermalm to Kungsholmen. The first underground parts of the Stockholm Metro opened in 1933 on the stretch from Skanstull to Slussen, although it would be trafficked by suburban trams gaining electricity from overhead wires until special metro vehicles was introduced in 1950 that collected its power from a third rail.

In addition to trams, motorbuses and the metro, SS once operated a large trolleybus system from 1941 until 1964. The Stockholm City Council decided in 1957 to suspend the tramway and the last four lines (4, 6, 7 and 8) that remained in the City Centre was closed in conjunction with the switch to right-hand side traffic in September 1967.

The company changed its name from January 1st 1967 to AB Storstockholms Lokaltrafik a is today resposable for public tranport in Stockholm County.

The new SS

In 1987 a new company with the name Stockholms Spårvägar was created by members of the Swedish Tramway Society to take care of the traffic on the then forthcoming Djurgården line. Since its 1991 opening the company runs the partially re-opened line to the island of Djurgården in central Stockholm. The majority of the personnel consist of voluntary enthusiasts receiving no pay, but there are a handful of employees for technical maintenance and administration.

ee also

* Stockholm Metro
* Public transport in Stockholm