Posts Tagged: Accident

17
Jul

2012

What Can We Learn From The Pakistan Cable Car Accident?

Vernacular, improvised ropeways in places like Pakistan, India and Nepal are common. They are often over-crowded, poorly built and maintained and too-often are involved in accidents.

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 year in Nepal.

But before everyone jumps to conclusions and assumes this is typical of the technology, please remember that both of these systems were improvised, vernacular installations. These human-powered systems tend to be hand-built by locals lacking the proper resources to build effective installations. Incidents such as these are often characterized by low-capacity vehicles overloaded with passengers straining the system’s upper limits past its breaking point.

Yes cable transit systems are safe – but only when designed, built and installed by qualified, knowledgeable professionals with access to the proper tools and resources. That stands for virtually any product.

The reality is this: These types of systems exist in plenty throughout the developing world. In regions where topography reigns supreme and money is scarce, these improvised are going to flourish. In many ways, that’s a good thing. Here are people using their own know-how and limited funds to solve very clear mobility challenges. We can’t fault them for improving their lot.

What we can do, however, is assist them in their endeavours. So while no one doubts the tragedy of these incidents, they do point to clear opportunities for the cable industry to both do some good and increase their market presence:

1. Most major corporations make donations to some charity or another. How about an in-kind donation of a slimmed down, professionally-designed system that can stand up to the rigours of these environments?

2. Development money in these parts of the world is a-plenty. Why not create a low-cost ropeway system specifically designed for this market?

3. A combo approach of both one and two: How about partnering with local development agencies and offer in-kind donations of ropeway services to check on these various installations, report on their safety and rehabilitate them where necessary?

4. How about setting up ropeway engineering schools and programs in these isolated areas to educate the locals about proper techniques and providing the necessary resources to realize those goals? Or take it one step further and build small branch-offices to do just that but within an existing corporate structure?

As the cable industry becomes more-and-more a player in the city building and urban transport markets, corporate social responsibility (CSR) will necessarily become a key part of their marketing strategy. And that’s not going to be a choice.

The major ropeway manufacturers will be compelled by market forces to engage with communities such as these in unique and innovative ways simply because the current city building industry privileges those companies that do. City building, whether we wish to admit it or not, is a pay-to-play game.

So rather than run some bland, run-of-the mill CSR endeavour, how about spotting opportunities to get a little dirty and actually do some good?

This is clearly one such opportunity.



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.

09
Apr

2012

Weekly Roundup: London, The Netherlands, Montreal and… Amazon.com?

Note: Due to the Easter Break, the Roundup was moved from last Friday to today. We will continue with Roundups on Fridays from here on. 

Emirates Air Line now has cables! Image via The Londonist.

A quick look at some of the highlights from around the world of Urban Gondolas, Gondola Transit, and Cable Propelled Transit:

  • Various news outlets (here, here and here for example) are reporting that 75 people were rescued by helicopter from a stalled Aerial Tram in St. Moritz Switzerland. No one was injured. We tend to report on cable accidents here on The Gondola Project because we believe (some might say counterintuitively) that, rather than ignore accidents and rescues, mentioning them highlights the incredible reliability and safety of the technology. If you’d like to learn more about cable’s safety record, see this post. As always (and as we’ve stated before here and here), the degree of media coverage a given technology’s failure causes is inversely related to the chance of that failure’s occurrence.
  • The Ngong Ping 360, a tourist system with a seemingly never-ending list of problems, was re-opened last week following a two-month suspension. Unfortunately, the relaunch was delayed due to a storm which seems a little bit odd to be honest. Nevertheless, Hong Kong’s Electrical and Mechanical Services Department (EMSD) has released its investigative report and recommended a series of measures prior to allowing the system to re-open. That report can be downloaded here.
  • And lastly: I don’t know what this is, or what it means, but Michael van Baker from Seattle’s The Sun Break posted a vitriolic and profanity-laced diatribe aimed directly at Amazon.com’s founder Jeff Bezos. In the incredibly bizarre column Baker suggests Mr. Bezos explore bringing gondolas to Seattle because “the other ***holes aren’t doing it.” I’ll admit that I have no idea what Baker is talking about but from what I can surmise he: a) doesn’t like Jeff Bezos and; b) doesn’t like the idea of using “cable-f***ing-driven gondolas.” If anyone has any idea (like, really, any idea) what this whole kerfuffle is about, I’d love to know.


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.

17
Aug

2011

Paraglider Cripples Gondola

Image via The Local.

Last week a German paraglider crashed into the cables of a Bavarian gondola. The incident trapped 20 people in the gondola for 17 hours overnight.

There were no injuries or fatalities and all parties were rescued via helicopter.

Does this mean gondolas are unsafe? No. It means accidents happen. For example:

Take 5 minutes to google various combinations of words like; metro, accident, stranded, subway, etc. and you’ll see that accidents with various public transportation technologies aren’t anything special – indeed, they’re common.

Much more common, in fact, than accidents involving cable cars and gondolas.



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.

07
Jan

2011

Sugarloaf Chairlift Accident

An image from the scene of the Sugarloaf incident. Image via Boardistan.

Last week a chair lift at Sugarloaf Resort in Maine derailed injuring 8 people, none seriously. Nevertheless, the story was all over the news and internet.

But as I’ve argued before here, the degree of media coverage a given technology’s failure causes is inversely related to the chance of that failure’s occurrence.

So while it may seem counter-intuitive to believe, the fact that you actually saw a news report about a ski lift accident is evidence of the technology being really quite safe.

According to the National Ski Areas Association:

  • there have been a total of 12 passenger fatalities involving ski lifts in the United States since 1973. This works out to 0.17 passenger fatalities per 100M passenger miles travelled.
  • An additional 3 fatalities involved employees, trespassers and other incidents. If one were to include these 3 fatalities with the 12 described above, one arrives at a figure of 0.21 passenger fatalities per 100M passenger miles travelled.
  • The last known gondola / aerial tram fatality occurred at Vail, Colorado in 1976; 4 passengers were killed.

Of course these numbers do not include non-ski lift area cable systems. But given the relative rarity of such systems in the United States, I think it reasonably fair to assume few if any additional fatalities. And while I could be wrong about this, I am unaware of any fatality in the recent history of aerial cable systems in urban areas of the United States. There have also been no fatalities associated with the Metrocable systems in Medellin and Caracas according to officials I interviewed last year.

Just to put things into perspective, the National Safety Council’s 2010 Injury Facts reports that in 2008:

  • 39,000 Americans died in motor-vehicle accidents;
  • 6,162 pedestrians were killed;
  • 6,700 died from unintentional public falls;
  • 3,800 died from unintentional public poisoning;
  • 3,600 people drowned while swimming in public areas;
  • 900 died while bicycle riding;
  • 129 died from tornadoes;
  • and 25 died from lightning.

That’s right, folks. You’ve got a better chance of dying in a tornado or lighting-related accident than you do riding in a gondola.

(I want to follow-up on this post with a comparison to other standard transit technologies. Data-gathering, however, is proving quite laborious. Stay tuned.)



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.