Greater Copenhagen Light Rail

Greater Copenhagen Light Rail (Danish: Hovedstadens Letbane, lit. 'The Capital City's Light Rail') is a light rail system which when fully operational will connect with six S-train lines in Greater Copenhagen, Denmark, parallel to but outside the borders of Copenhagen Municipality. Its first stage is known as the Ring 3 Light Rail, for which construction started in 2018. It will go from Lundtofte, north of Copenhagen to Ishøj station in the southwest, with a projected annual ridership of 13-14 million.^[5] The southern section, from Ishøj to Rødovre Nord, with 12 stations, opened on 26 October 2025, while the northern section to Lundtofte, comprising 17 stations, is expected to open in the summer of 2026.^[6]

The line is owned by the Ringby-Letbanesamarbejdet (Ring city-Light rail cooperation), which is a collaboration between the municipalities serviced or affected by the line.

The rapid transit network of greater Copenhagen consists of a metro system serving the city centre, south-eastern suburbs and one western suburb, and a well-developed S-train network consisting of radial lines and one inner ring line relatively close to the city centre. Further from the city centre, transport between the radials consists of bus lines. Since the suburbs along the radials were expected to grow, a better quality public transport solution between them was thought to be needed.^[3] Furthermore, some high passenger volume destinations such as the Technical University and two hospitals were not yet directly accessible through rail transit.

Procurement for the project was structured into five civil works packages and three packages covering equipment, operations, and maintenance. In 2018, Danish construction companies MJ Eriksson, Per Aarsleff, and CG Jensen were awarded the civil works contracts, with CG Jensen additionally commissioned to construct the line’s operations control and maintenance centre.^[7]

The transport systems contract, covering both railway infrastructure and rolling stock, was awarded to a consortium comprising Siemens and Aarsleff Rail. Siemens was contracted to deliver a turnkey solution involving electrification, signalling, communications, workshop equipment as well as overall management of the project.^[7][8] A 15 year operations and maintenance contract was awarded to Metro Service, a subsidiary of ATM Milano, which also operates the Copenhagen Metro.^[6]

Ridership is expected to reach 14.7 million passengers per year by 2030.^[9]

Trains will depart every 5 minutes from both terminals, and every 10 minutes on evenings, Sundays and public holidays.^[3][9] The trip between the terminals will be completed in 58 minutes.^[10]

Since the southern section opened on 26 October 2025, trains are operating at 10 minute intervals. This will be reduced to 5 minutes when the 15 km northern section to Lundtofte opens in summer 2026.^[6]

In total the line will have 29 stations, six of which will have a connection to the S-train network.^{[3][11][12][13][14]}

Source:^[15]

In February 2018, 29 Siemens Avenio 4-car low floor trams (27 base order and 2 options) were ordered. The contract includes options for up to 30 trams and maintenance of the trams for 15 years. The trams are light green, distinguishing them as a new and "eco-friendly" mode of transport. The trams have 6 x 100W motors and weigh approximately 48 tonnes each. They have a capacity of 258, including 64 seats. The entrance height is 350 mm above the rail. The trams are 36.9 m in length and 2.65 m wide. They are equipped with LCD information screens.^[16] They were built at the Siemens factory in Kragujevac, Serbia.^[17] They were tested at the Siemens Wegberg-Wildenrath Test and Validation Centre and the depot, where they are maintained, in Glostrup.^[9]

The trams have step-free boarding and level-access inside, with 4 areas for bicycles, pushchairs and wheelchairs.^[9]

• Greater Copenhagen Light Rail trams at Skjoldenæsholm Tram Museum

The line is be owned through the Ringby-Light rail cooperation by the Ministry of Transport, Capital Region of Denmark and the municipalities of Lyngby-Taarbæk, Gladsaxe, Herlev, Albertslund (no station;in Glostrup, bordering Albertslund), Rødovre, Glostrup, Brøndby, Hvidovre (no station), Vallensbæk, Ishøj and Høje-Taastrup (no station). The Danish state will contribute 40% to the construction, the municipalities 34% and the Capital Region of Denmark will contribute 26%.^[3]

Originally estimated to cost 6.2 billion kr. and later 8.2 billion kr. in 2022, the final cost is expected to be 9.6 billion kr. ($1.48 billion).^[6]

Several expansion stages are proposed,^{[18][19][20][21][22]} Future proposals for extensions include a southeastern line of approximately 10 km branching from Kirkebjerg, following Park Allé past Brøndby Stadium and Brøndby Strand Station to reach Avedøre Holme.^[23] A 2013 screening study prepared by COWI for the Capital Region of Denmark subsequently examined extending this corridor beyond Avedøre Holme to Copenhagen Airport.^[24] Another proposed addition is a northern route extending from Lundtofte towards Hørsholm and Kokkedal.,^{[25][26][18][19][20][21][27]} This can also be extended to Copenhagen Airport.^{[28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44]}

Likewise, a northern extension to Kokkedal Station is proposed.^[45] This, together with an HH-connection may be a small part of a future ring around the Øresund with rail traffic.

^{[46][37][47][48][27][45][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][44]}

• Aarhus Letbane
• Transport in Copenhagen
• Stockholm Tvärbanan - a similar orbital line operating in Stockholm since 2000
• Helsinki light rail line 15 - a similar orbital line operating in Helsinki since 2023
• List of town tramway systems in Denmark
• Odense Letbane

• Project website
• The line in the Copenhagen region rapid transit network (in yellow) Archived 2016-03-10 at the Wayback Machine
• Planned course of the line