The short answer
In Düsseldorf cars and the Rheinbahn share the carriageway on many streets. Three things matter: never stop where you block the tracks, at stops without an island either wait behind a stationary tram or pass at walking pace, and in the wet neither brake nor steer on the rails. Which restricted lanes apply is on the signs.
Moving to Düsseldorf from a city without trams means the biggest adjustment happens here — not because of the tram itself, but because it does not run on its own reserved track. It runs down the middle of the carriageway you are on.
The rules you have to know cold
- A tram is overtaken on the right as a matter of principle. On the left only where there is no room on the right
- At stops without an island: wait behind the stationary tram, or pass at walking pace and with room — people getting on and off have priority
- Never stop with any part of the car in the track area, not even briefly
- Turning across tracks: check for a tram first, then clear them — a tram cannot swerve
- In wet, leaves or frost, rails are slippery. Do not brake on them and do not steer on them
That last rule gets the most time in training. Steel set into asphalt has considerably less grip in the wet than the surface beside it, and turning the wheel or standing on the brake at exactly that point produces feedback nobody ordered.
A tram standing at a stop with no island. It sits there quietly and looks harmless — which is exactly why many people drive past at normal speed while passengers step out between the cars on both sides. In beginner lessons that is the situation where a word most often falls before anything happens.
Restricted lanes: read them, do not memorise them
Düsseldorf has changed its restricted lanes several times in recent years — bus lanes, cycle lanes, at times lanes with wider access. Do not rely on what applied last year or what somebody told you, rely on the sign and its supplementary plate. That is where it says who may drive there and when.
Where this meets you in the city
Effectively everywhere on the routes through the centre and the inner districts — around Berliner Allee and Corneliusstraße as much as in Bilk, Flingern and on the Luegallee in Oberkassel. Anyone taking lessons with us meets this in the first week rather than as a special chapter at the end.
Half the theory on this is its own topic
Rail traffic, stops and restricted lanes are theory topics in their own right — what they cover is worth reading before your first lesson in the centre rather than after it.
Which situations recur in the test is under test routes — the tram is one of them, reliably.
What to take away
The Rheinbahn is not a special case, it is a permanent co-user of your carriageway. Read rails as a slippery surface and stops as pedestrian areas and you have understood most of it — the rest is on the signs.