Editing Nottingham Express Transit (section)

===Opening of phase one===
Nottingham Express Transit began operation in March 2004, with a line operating north from a terminal at Station Street, just to the north of [[Nottingham station|Nottingham railway station]], through the city centre, branching to serve twin termini at [[Hucknall station|Hucknall]] and [[Phoenix Park tram stop|Phoenix Park]]. Once the line was complete, operation was sub-contracted by Arrow Light Rail to the Nottingham Tram Consortium (NTC), an equal partnership between [[Transdev]] and [[Nottingham City Transport]].<ref name=rtpn/>

The new line proved successful, leading to an increase of public transport use for the Nottingham urban area of 8% in the five years to 2008, together with a less than 1% growth in road traffic, compared to the national average of around 4%.<ref name=rtpn/> The line itself exceeded expectations, with 8.4{{nbsp}}million journeys in 2004–2005 and 9.7{{nbsp}}million in 2005–2006, against targets of 8{{nbsp}}million and 9{{nbsp}}million respectively. By 2007–8, ridership had reached 10.2{{nbsp}}million journeys.<ref name=ngt93>{{cite book |title = Nottingham's growing tramway – Building on NET's success |first = Geoffrey |last = Skelsey |page = 93 |language = en-gb}}</ref> This performance bolstered the case for the construction of new lines.

On 27 July 2009, the [[GMB (trade union)|GMB]] [[trade union]] held a [[Industrial action|strike]] in protest at a proposed pay cut of 0.6% offered by Nottingham Tram Consortium. A maximum of five trams out of a normal service of 13 ran from 06:00 until 18:00 on the Hucknall route, with replacement buses running a shuttle from Phoenix Park.<ref>{{cite news |title = Tram works carried out planned strike action yesterday after talks failed |author = This is Nottingham |work = Nottingham Evening Post |publisher = Local World Limited |date = 28 July 2009 |url = http://www.nottinghampost.com/Tram-strike-causes-delays-queues/story-12254195-detail/story.html |access-date = 28 July 2009 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150921154526/http://www.nottinghampost.com/Tram-strike-causes-delays-queues/story-12254195-detail/story.html |archive-date = 21 September 2015 |url-status = dead |df = dmy-all |language = en-gb}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url = https://socialistworker.co.uk/news/nottingham-tram-workers-strike-over-pay/ |title = Nottingham tram workers strike over pay |website = socialistworker.co.uk |first = John |last = Shemeld |date = 28 July 2009 |language = en-gb}}</ref>