1. Light rail was devised in 1972 by the U.S. Urban Mass Transportation Administration (UMTA) to describe new streetcar transformations that were taking place in Europe and the United States.
轻轨一词于1972年由美国城市公共交通管理局（UMTA）发明，用于描述当时发生在欧洲和美国的新有轨电车改造。
2. The use of the generic term light rail avoids some serious incompatibilities between British and American English.
使用通用术语“轻轨”避免了英式英语和美式英语之间的一些严重的差异性。
3. The most difficult distinction to draw is that between light rail and streetcar or tram systems. There is a significant amount of overlap between the technologies, many of the same vehicles can be used for either, and it is common to classify streetcars or trams as a subcategory of light rail rather than as a distinct type of transportation.
最难描绘的是轻轨和有轨电车系统之间的区别。这些技术之间存在大量重叠，许多相同的车辆都可用于二者，并且通常的想法是将有轨电车归类为轻轨的子类别，而不是作为一种独特的运输类型。
4. The traditional type, where tracks and trains run along the streets and share space with road traffic. Stops tend to be very frequent, but little effort is made to set up special stations. Because space is shared, the tracks are usually visually unobtrusive.
传统类型中，轨道和列车沿着街道运行，并与道路交通共享空间。虽然频繁停车，但很少建立专门的站点。由于空间是共享的，因此轨道在视觉上通常不显眼。
5. The trains tend to run along their own right-of-way and are often separated from road traffic. Stops are generally less frequent, and the vehicles are often boarded from a platform. Tracks are highly visible.
列车往往沿着自己的通行权运行，并且通常与道路交通分开。停车也不那么频繁，车辆通常从站台登车。轨道可以非常明显地看到。
6. This phenomenon is quite common in Chinese cities, where elevated light metro lines in Shanghai, Wuhan, and Dalian are called light rail lines. In North America, such systems are not considered light rail.
这种现象在中国城市中很常见，上海、武汉和大连的高架地铁线路被称为轻轨线路。在北美，这些系统则不视为轻轨。
7. Many light rail systems—even fairly old ones—have a combination of the two, with both on-and off-road sections. In some countries (especially in Europe), only the latter is described as light rail.
许多轻轨系统（甚至是相当古老的轻轨系统）都有公路和非公路路段这两者的结合。在一些国家（特别是在欧洲），只有后者被描述为轻轨。
8. There is a significant difference in cost between these different classes of light rail transit.
这些不同类别的轻轨交通之间存在显着的成本差异。