The city of Lille is located in the north of France close to the Belgian border and has a population of about 250,000 (1 million including suburbs). It is one of only three trams in France, which has existed continuously since 1874 and has never been shut down ever since. This is why the Lille tram runs on metre-gauge tracks, while all the newly constructed tram networks were built in standard-gauge. The "network" is, however, rather negligible: there are just two routes with a total length of 22 kilometres, which share one line within Lille and branch only in the outer area.

There is also a subway (Metro) since 1983, which also has two lines and is operated full-automatically with quite small "VAL" vehicles. The Metro system has a total length of approx. 45 km.

Both systems are operated by a company called → Transpole.