Historical Cartography has aroused widespread interest in scientific circles in recent years,
with potential for application in the field of transportation engineering. This article aimed to carry out
comparative analysIs between the layout of old tram lines and Light Rail Vehicle (LRV) in Rio de Janeiro
City, extracted from old and current cartographic products, in order to highlight their impact on mobility
and urban restructuring processes. The research methodology consisted of using the QGis software, by
carrying out the following procedures: georeferencing of old scaned maps of the city, referring to the years 1879 and 1900; vectorizing the layout of the old tram lines of the companies that operated at the
time; and integrating these with the vectors of the layout of the LRV lines obtained from OpenStreetMap
(OSM). The results show that comparative analysis between the vectorizations of transport modes
enable the understanding of their evolution in the urban context, their contributions to the physical
expansion of the city and their role in urban mobility. Among the contributions to the areas of urban
geography and transport engineering, the following stand out: applications in urban planning and
infrastructure, as well as in the planning of the transport infrastructure of cities.
