When it comes to anything on rails it’s all VERY arbitrary and hard to define, but probably the single most useful and objective line you can draw is between systems that run on line-of-sight (like normal, cars/buses/bikes/walking) and systems that run on signals (99.999% of trains do this, the main exceptions being in places like depots and yards where the trains will go 40km/h max so they have time to stop if needed).
Other than that, “tram” almost always means it’s a smaller vehicle (primarily in width, but they’re also usually shorter as well) and it tends to at least partially run in/next to the street like buses do.
When it comes to anything on rails it’s all VERY arbitrary and hard to define, but probably the single most useful and objective line you can draw is between systems that run on line-of-sight (like normal, cars/buses/bikes/walking) and systems that run on signals (99.999% of trains do this, the main exceptions being in places like depots and yards where the trains will go 40km/h max so they have time to stop if needed).
Other than that, “tram” almost always means it’s a smaller vehicle (primarily in width, but they’re also usually shorter as well) and it tends to at least partially run in/next to the street like buses do.