Climate change to be considered in future Sheffield tram expansion after heatwave brought network to a halt
“The network will have to sustain itself through much higher temperatures”
Public transport services are to be future proofed as climate change presents new issues for operators.
On Friday, June 26, as temperatures passed 34 degrees, Supertram announced that all their services would be cancelled.
The day, which was the hottest on-record for June, came during one of a number of heatwaves to have hit the country so far this year.
Meteorologist are already predicting that more extreme weather patterns like these will return in future years, prompting South Yorkshire’s Mayor to prepare plans to protect the region against what he calls “climate breakdown.”
South Yorkshire Mayor Oliver Coppard said: “We're doing work principally on the public transport network - so certainly it's a huge part of what we're trying to do when we think about the refurbishment and renewal of the tram network.
“Clearly the tram network has not worked as well as we would like over the recent hot weather and that's partly because it was put in a time, 30 years ago, when the sort of temperatures we were thinking about were mid-30s as an extreme.
“Now, mid-30s doesn't feel extreme. So, looking forward, we'll be thinking about much higher temperatures when doing that work.
“The network will have to sustain itself through much higher temperatures into the mid and late 40s and above. That's something that we're doing at the moment in terms of developing and designing that network as well as thinking about what does it mean for air condition cabs and carriages? What does it mean for the bus network going forward? How people can be protected from that weather there as well?
“So there's a load of work going on and will continue to go on.”
Trams - which were taken under public ownership in 2024 - suffered during the hot weather as overhead lines weren’t designed to handle temperatures over 34 degrees.
When the June heatwave hit, lines sagged, making it unsafe to continue running trams.
Improving transport isn’t the only way South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA) are tackling these problems, as they’ve also set a target to plant 1.4 million new trees across the region.
“We’ve already made progress there about 300,000 plants across South Yorkshire since I became mayor,” Mr Coppard added.
“Trees are a big part of how you you call a place down - we do it pretty well in some places, Sheffield in particular has a load of tree coverage, places like Doncaster less so.
“So we've got a load of more work to do in that space, but big ambitions.”
The Mayor has also said that it’s not simply about adapting, but looking at where the county can “take advantage” of how these changes might help local jobs and growth.
He points to Boeing, who are researching sustainable aviation options at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre in Waverley, and ITM Power introducing the biggest hydrogen electrolyser factory in Europe at Doncaster Sheffield Airport (DSA).
“I’ve said repeatedly, DSA has to be part of the solution, not part of the problem,” Mr Coppard continued.
“That’s why those two parts of the plan go hand-in-hand, both an airport and a sustainable aviation hub for world-class, world-leading research and technologies which will help us get to sustainable aviation here, in the not too distant future.
“My job is to represent people in South Yorkshire right across South Yorkshire.
“There are some people on each bit of that spectrum from some people who do not believe that climate change exists - now, I'm not in that camp at all myself, clearly - to those people who think that frankly we should be doing every single thing to break our backs to be climate neutral today.
“Now, I'm having to be in the middle of that debate and say actually we have to take sensible, pragmatic and forward-thinking steps about how we adapt to the changing climate.
“I want to be able to fly in the future to see friends, to see family, to do business, to bring in partnerships and investment from around the world for South Yorkshire.
“If I am in that place and I want to reopen an airport, which I do, I have to work out how do we make sure that we are helping people to fly more sustainably and get to that carbon neutral goal for aviation.”