The work aims to explore a tram appearance design method with typical regional culture, in order to enhance the cultural connotation in the appearance design of tram. The process of extracting and transforming regional cultural elements was explained from three levels:conceptual design, behavioral design and visual design. Combined with specific cases of modern tram design, the model of integrating regional cultural elements into tram appearance design was explored, and then a tram appearance design method with typical regional culture as the theme was established. The tram appearance design with typical regional culture was carried out and a model was constructed with Tianfu culture of Chengdu as an example. The semantic information of the design solutions was quantified and compared through the semantic difference method and SPSS statistical analysis. The data from the semantic validation evaluation of design solutions indicate that the design method of extracting and transforming typical regional culture from three levels:conceptual, behavioral and visual, is feasible and can achieve the transformation of cultural elements in different dimensions of material culture carriers, which can provide new ideas for regional tram appearance design.