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Urban passenger mobility challenges can be sustainably eased with electric trains. However, due to the visual impact, safety and, electrification cost concerns, some routes or section(s) of a route are not electrified. In such cases, battery powered trams present a promising alternative. Rail vehicles are heavy but, they have a low coefficient of rolling friction. Consequently, they draw high power during acceleration as compared to the power demand during cruising. Thus, a high capacity high-voltage traction battery is required to provide accelerating power. To minimise total electrified distance and traction battery size, a battery and accelerating-contact line (BACL) hybrid tram system in which a tram accelerates from a station drawing power from a short contact line and cruises with traction battery is presented. Simulated in MATLAB, the BACL hybrid tram system with 1.8 km total electrified distance has equivalent performance to the conventional battery and contact line hybrid tram system with 12.2 km total electrified distance. Compared to independently battery powered tram, battery size is reduced by 62.5%. Suggested applications for the BACL tram system are on short, fairly flat, idle lines with few stops.

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