Amsterdam Trams

Amsterdam trams, or trolleys, are clean and efficient.  Each one seems to have both conductor and driver, with the conductor sitting in the back to sell and stamp tickets.

The trams themselves are segmented, like caterpillars or folding rulers.   Each segment is a separate car, sort of, but without intervening doors.   Between each segment there is a circular plate on the floor, so that the trams can bend around corners and curves segment by segment (this can be a bit dicey for standees at the junctions).

Tickets come by day or by transit time.  The former involves a single ticket that is good for any one day.  The first time it is used the conductor stamps it with the date and then it is only good for that day.  This is good for touring when one might wish to jump on and off a lot in a single day.

The latter (called something like a "strippenkart") involves buying some number of hours and having them checked off a bit at a time by the conductor.  We only found out about this after the fact and don't really know it works, but it is definitely cheaper when one's number of trips on the tram per day is low.

For tourists, there is a "circle tram" that runs from the train station at the center of town in a circle back to the train station.  It runs fairly frequently during the day (something like every 10 minutes) in both directions and includes most of the basic tourist areas in the central part of the city.  This is the tram that we used, as it is simple to understand and convenient for tourists.

Other trams run every which way and are probably more efficient if one knows the tram routes and schedules.  These trams evidently go into the outer areas of the city.