Montjuïc Funicular « The Gondola Project

Montjuïc Funicular

02
Mar

2018

LEITNER Ropeways Modernizes Montjuïc Funicular

Montjuïc Funicular. Image by LEITNER ropeways.

The Montjuïc Funicular in Barcelona, Spain has been providing passengers with quick, reliable, and convenient transportation to the hill of Montjuïc since it was built in 1928 for the World Exhibition.

The 718m long cable-hauled line was then renewed in preparation for a flux of visitors who arrived in the City during the 1992 Summer Olympics. Most recently, LEITNER ropeways was selected to conduct modernization works on the transport line between November 2015 and April 2016.

As part of the work plan, the two vehicles were overhauled, the electrical and mechanical components and the ropes were replaced, and the brakes and the emergency brakes were modernized.

New video and audio systems were installed. Image by LEITNER ropeways.

The Montjuïc Funicular was also equipped with LeitControl, an innovative and intuitive control system. Complex work processes are now improved and simplified which increases staff safety and comfort. In particular, Operations Manager Carlos Sanchez was impressed with how much information was now available to operators at a single glance.

The system remains a vital transit link in Barcelona which serves 1.5 million passengers per year. As the funicular can transport up to 8,000 passengers per hour per direction, this makes it one of the highest capacity funiculars in the world! Today, the system is fully integrated with City’s transit network and is connected to Barcelona Metro’s L2 and L3 lines and the Leitner-built urban gondola, the Téléferic de Montjuïc.

To learn more about the modernization program and LEITNER ropeways, click here.

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Comments

30
Jan

2014

System Profile: Montjuïc Funicular, Barcelona

Image by Steven Dale.

As we know, public transit agencies rarely implement cable transit solutions within their networks (hence this website), and when they do, they tend to implement them not as fully-integrated components of their network but rather as isolated, independent components (here or here for example).

They’re treated kind of like that awkward, sticky-fingered step-cousin you only see at certain holidays—kept off to the side and left to fend for themselves.

That’s what makes the Monjuïc Funicular in Barcelona so wonderful. It isn’t an afterthought or at the kiddie’s table.

Montjuïc Funicular. Image by Flickr user lisaeeeee.

The system, originally built in 1928 to serve the hilltop Expo of 1929, was rebuilt by Leitner in 1992 so as to cope with the increased traffic to and from the hilltop due to the wildly successful Barcelona Summer Olympics.

While only a modest 758 meters long and ostensibly built solely for tourists, the system is fully-integrated into Barcelona’s wider transportation network and is operated by TMB, the city’s local transportation agency. There are no additional fares to ride the system and the station platform is a mere 30 second walk down the hall from the nearby Paral-lel metro station platform.

You could, if you wanted to, pay your metro fare at the top of the funicular and then transfer directly to the metro without going outside, paying an additional fare or even passing through a turnstile—it’s that wedded into the overall system.

The station platform of the Montjuïc Funicular. Image by Steven Dale

Currently, the system operates at approximately ten minute headways with a trip time of only two minutes. But during the Olympics, the system was operating at full-tilt: 10 m/s speeds, with three minute headways and cabins packed to the brim with 400 passengers.

Do the math and you quickly realize that during the Olympics, the Montjuîc Funicular was moving 8,000 pphpd. For those who are keeping track, that’s thought to be the most number of people a funicular had ever carried in history and is a record that stands to this day.

Unfortunately, the headways between vehicles experienced back then are not experienced now.

The current wait times for the vehicles are not exactly prohibitive—after all, at ten minutes they’re still within the tolerance of most urban frequent service bus schedules—but they do feel excessively long for what is such a short ride. Certainly it is possible for the system to operate at shorter frequencies, but to do so would only increase the wear-and-tear on the system.

That’s one of those operational trade-offs that causes problems. From a rider’s perspective, a ten minute wait for a two minute journey hardly seems reasonable, but does it make sense for a transit agency to operate a system in an inefficient manner so as to provide for a greater level of customer satisfaction?

Hard to say.

Notwithstanding that one minor issue, the Montjuïc Funicular is exemplary in its overall function and integration. It’s not the typical cable car bastard child of the transit network; it’s part of the family. That’s what makes it valuable as a case study. The Montjuïc Funicular teaches you that if you treat a cable car system as transit, then it is transit. That’s the (easily remedied) mistake that London is making with their cable car line.

Perhaps most interesting?

Its upper terminus is right next to another urban cable transit line and what must certainly be one of the world’s most interesting urban gondola systems—but we’ll talk about that next week.

See that black box to the left? It’s in there. Image by Steven Dale.

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