The San Francisco cable cars, though significantly reduced in number, continue to perform a regular transportation function, in addition to being a well-known tourist attraction.
The first regular electric tram service using pantographs or trolley poles, the Gross-Lichterfelde Tramway, was put into service in Lichterfelde, then a suburb of Berlin, (now part of the southwestern Berlin city district of Steglitz-Zehlendorf), by Siemens & Halske AG (company founder Werner von Siemens), in May 1881.