Identify Tram Types: Combino, Flexity, Avenio, Variobahn

Updated: August 2026 – At first glance, modern trams all look interchangeable: flat, long, lots of windows. In fact, every vehicle reveals its family within seconds, once you know what to look at. This guide shows you how to identify tram types – and why the type often already reveals which network you’re standing in.

Identifying tram types: the short answer

You identify a tram type using five features in a fixed order: number of modules, position of the bogies, front-end shape, door layout and low-floor share. This combination is so characteristic that it leads to the right family in almost every case – even without a manufacturer’s logo on the vehicle. That logo is misleading anyway: Bombardier Transportation has been part of Alstom since 2021, but the product names live on.

The reason is how they’re built: modern trams are modular kits. The Combino, Avenio, Flexity and Variobahn differ less in their design than in their construction logic – how many modules there are, what they sit on, and where the joints are. Read that, and you’ve read the type. If you’re new to the hobby altogether, it’s worth first checking the tips for new tram spotters.

The five features in detail

1. Count the modules and articulations

Count the individual car bodies between the bellows. Five modules with four articulations is a different vehicle from three long bodies with two articulations – even if both are the same overall length. Module division is by far the most stable feature, because it changes neither with a repaint nor with a refurbishment.

2. Look at the bogies

One detail rewards a second look: the magnetic track brake above the rail, which in local transport often comes from Hanning & Kahl and is visible on almost every tram bogie.

Here two design schools part ways. Classically, bogies sit under the middle of the modules, the vehicle is a little higher there, and the interior has raised platforms. Consistently low-floor designs instead have independently rotating wheelsets under the articulations, keeping the floor flat over the whole length. From outside you can tell by the position of the wheel housings relative to the bellows.

3. Compare the front end

The front is what manufacturers style most strongly – and what operators most often have individualised. As a feature it’s therefore useful, but never decisive on its own. Pay less attention to the headlight shapes and more to the rake of the windscreen and whether the front tapers box-shaped or rounded.

4. Read the door layout

Where are the doors, how wide are they, and are there doors on both sides of the vehicle? Doors on both sides mean a double-ended tram – together with a second cab at the rear, a clear-cut feature. Such vehicles don’t need a turning loop and therefore turn up at different endpoints than single-ended cars.

5. Estimate the low-floor share

Does the floor visibly rise behind the doors? Then it’s a partial low-floor vehicle. Does it stay flat all the way through? Then it’s a full low-floor tram. You’ll spot high-floor light rail vehicles immediately because they stop at high platforms and carry folding steps for low stops.

The main tram families at a glance

The table below sorts the families by identifying feature. The networks named are examples – which vehicles run where changes with every procurement and every modernisation programme.

Family	Manufacturer	Identifying feature	Design	Example networks
Combino	Siemens	Very even module division, continuously flat floor, large window areas	Full low-floor	Potsdam, Erfurt, Augsburg, Ulm
Avenio	Siemens	Rounder front, more classic bogie layout than the Combino	Full low-floor	Munich, and abroad among others The Hague
Flexity (tram)	Bombardier / Alstom	Bold, angular front, wide doors, sturdy module bodies	Low- to partial low-floor	Berlin, Vienna
Flexity Swift (light rail)	Bombardier / Alstom	Noticeably larger, high-platform boarding, light rail profile	High-floor	Cologne and further light rail networks
Variobahn	Stadler	Highly configurable, different length and door count depending on customer	Full low-floor	Munich, Bochum, Duisburg, Potsdam
TW3000	HeiterBlick / Vossloh Kiepe / Alstom	Light rail vehicle with a distinctive front design	High-floor	Hanover
Stadtbahnwagen Typ B	Duewag and successors	Boxy high-floor vehicle with folding steps	High-floor	Networks in the Rhineland and Ruhr area
Tatra T4D / KT4D	ČKD Tatra	Short, boxy car bodies, classic high-floor design	High-floor	East German networks, some now in special service only

If you want to know how other spotters keep their vehicle lists and where discussions on individual types happen, the tram guide on Drehscheibe Online is a good place to start your research.

Identification helper: which tram type is in front of you?

The classics: Tatra, Duewag and why they’re so popular

No modern low-floor tram attracts as many photographers as an old Tatra or a Duewag articulated car. There are solid reasons for that:

• They’re getting rarer. Every new procurement pushes out older vehicles. What’s still running today can be gone by the next timetable period.
• They run irregularly. Classics often only run at peak times, on individual lines, or as spares. A sighting is never guaranteed.
• They’re visually unmistakable. Short car bodies, sharp edges, often trains formed of a motor and trailer car – a completely different picture from a 40-metre low-floor tram.
• They tell the network’s history. In many East German networks, Tatra cars shaped the street scene for decades; in NRW and the Rhineland, Duewag articulated cars and the Stadtbahnwagen Typ B did the same.

Anyone specifically hunting such vehicles works with roster observation rather than chance: note when and where a classic was spotted, and match these patterns over weeks. Combining your own observation with live data helps here – how that works is explained in the guide on how to track a moving tram.

Why the type tells you where to look

Operators buy in series. That’s why only a few types dominate each network, and mixed fleets almost always arise through generational change. For trip planning, that means:

Which spots are suitable for this, and how to collect them on your own map, is shown by the guide to the tram spotter map. For the photographic execution, the guide on how to photograph trams supplies the fundamentals, and for detailed image composition, the guide on tram spotter photos is worth a look.

Common mistakes when identifying tram types

• Going by the front end alone. Front ends get individualised, module divisions don’t. Anyone who only compares the nose regularly mixes up families.
• Mistaking refurbished vehicles for new ones. Redesigns swap seats, lighting and sometimes the front cladding. The base vehicle stays the same – recognisable from the bogies and articulations.
• Treating the manufacturer as clear-cut. Vehicles from consortiums are attributed differently depending on the source – cars from HeiterBlick therefore sometimes run under this name, sometimes under that of the electrical partner.
• Equating light rail with trams. High-floor light rail vehicles aren’t trams in the narrow sense. They stop at high platforms and partly run in tunnel.
• Missing double-ended trams. Anyone who only sees one side of the vehicle misses the most important feature. A look at the far side is always worth it.
• Straying onto track areas. Even for the perfect side profile: track areas, depots and stabling sidings are off limits. Photograph exclusively from publicly accessible areas.
• Ignoring legal questions. What’s permitted in public space is covered in the article on whether you’re allowed to photograph trams – though the assessment always depends on the individual case.

Conclusion

Trams only look uniform until you stop looking at the design. Modules, bogies, doors and cabs are the features that don’t lie – and they lead reliably to the right family. Once you’ve internalised this system, you can identify not just the vehicles outside your own front door, but also those in any unfamiliar city. And because vehicle type and network are so closely linked, identification almost automatically becomes a planning aid for your next photo trip – as described in the guide to tram photography as a hobby.