Post by Steven Dale
As cable transit is fully automated, operators can focus on passengers and their needs, rather than road traffic.
It’s a new year, folks! Congratulations, we survived another one!
My column yesterday attracted the site’s first Rabble and I don’t expect it to be the last. Among “thickslab’s” (please don’t post anonymously on this site, folks, and try to be respectful) concerns was the issue of passenger safety. I don’t mean in the sense of a technological failure (a rarity anyways), but in the sense of conflicts between riders and undesirables.
Is this a legitimate concern? Yes and no. It’s legitimate in that every time we choose to leave our front doors (or even when we don’t) we risk harm by other people. It’s just a question of how we minimize those risks. It’s not a legitimate concern in that the risk is no greater with cable than with any other public transit technology:
- Being in an elevator with someone you don’t know?
- Taking a taxi cab with a “foreign” driver.
- The end of a subway platform where monitors aren’t installed.
- A public-access stairwell late at night.
- A subway car whose driver is 5 cars away.
- Et cetera. Et cetera. Et cetera.
Most public transit cable systems use closed-circuit television in each car. These live feeds are monitored continually by staff located in stations or in an on-board monitoring station. As vehicles are equipped with additional communications devices, safety is as close as the nearest station. Smaller vehicles also mean that those communication devices are typically closer at hand to passengers than larger vehicles.
When staff spots or is alerted to an issue, security personnel and staff can be dispatched immediately to the station whereby the perpetrator can be apprehended. Furthermore, vehicles that carry a large number of passengers almost always have an attendant in-vehicle at all times.
Additionally, as operators and staff do not have to worry about contending with traffic and the actual driving of the vehicle, I’d argue that they are more capable of attending to the safety of passengers because their attention is not focused on “the road.” In the picture above, you can see the “driver” of a cable vehicle in Innsbruck who can actually monitor the activity of all five cars he’s responsible for.
This is simple fear-mongering and it doesn’t work: Even after last week’s unfortunate attempt by a youth to bring down an airliner bound for Detroit, hundreds of thousands of people still continue to fly (with unnecessary hassle, by the way).
People accept that a life lived around other people is a life that involves some degree of risk. But most of us choose to ignore that risk and live a happy life.
I would, however, be interested to know statistically-speaking how many passenger incidents occur in public cable systems as opposed to public non-cable systems. If anyone has any information on the matter, I’d love to see it.
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Want more? Purchase Cable Car Confidential: The Essential Guide to Cable Cars, Urban Gondolas & Cable Propelled Transit and start learning about the world's fastest growing transportation technologies.
handicappeddisabled patron could bring a Gondola to a full stop in order to enter/egress. This will mess up the timing/spacing of the Gondolas and potentially cause several to bunch up. How is this issue addressed?