As early as 250BC, ropeways have been used to transport people and goods across difficult terrain. Even today, as many parts of the world are rapidly modernizing, some places are still reliant on simple cable systems. In the Yogyakarta region of Indonesia, locals have strung together a rather precarious-looking cable car over the treacherous waters...
In a recent article, a Swiss transportation planning professor from the University of Applied Sciences Rapperswil, suggested that to maximize its usefulness for passengers, urban gondolas should be fully integrated into a city’s transit network. While Professor Büchel does not precisely describe what he meant by integration, it seems logical to think that he is...
The Maokong Gondola (Taipei, Taiwan) announced last December its intention to raise fares in the new year. These plans were officially confirmed by the city government in a news release this week. Depending on the number of stations a passenger travels to, fares will increase by 130-150%. This might sound like a lot, but in reality...
(Note: It’s been a while since I’ve posted on The Gondola Project. It’s been a busy summer with lots of changes to our company and our site. We’ll let you all know about the details in the coming months, but in the meantime, I’d like to extend a big thanks to Nick and Charlotte for...
As we’ve demonstrated before, cable cars, ropeways and gondolas are amongst the safest transit technologies in the world. But that doesn’t mean accidents don’t happen. A few days ago in Pakistan a cable car system snapped, sending 8 passengers plunging into the swollen Indus river below. No survivors were reported. A similar incident occurred last...
If nothing else, the London Cable Car raises an interesting question: When should a transit line be fully fare-integrated into a transit network and when should it not. For those unfamiliar, an additional fare is required for people to ride the London Cable Car despite it, ostensibly, being a part of the overall Transport...
A Thought Experiment: You live downtown and you’ve got to travel a distance of 1.5 km, drop off a package and return home. If you lived in Toronto (as I do), the trip would cost you $6.00 round trip by subway. Would you pay it? A great many people would probably say answer ‘no’ to...
Whether we’re talking about Light Rail, Urban Gondolas, Monorails or PRT systems, I’ve recently begun to hear an argument against multimodal transit systems that I’ve yet to hear before: The cost. From a transit agency accountant or city finance perspective, multi-modality is nice in principle but incredibly costly to implement. Let’ s walk through this...
A strange thing happened during yesterday’s discussion of the spiralling costs of the London Thames Cable Car: Like any time before when the topic of urban versus resort installations comes up, the de facto response is: Well, duh, of course it’s more expensive to build in cities and for government. You’ve said it. I’ve said it....
Over the weekend it was announced that the estimated project cost for London’s Thames Cable Car (Gondola) has ballooned to an estimated £60m. For those interested, that means the system will cost roughly $100m USD per kilometer. With the possible exception of the Caracas Metrocable (whose finances are discussed here), the London Thames Cable Car...