After the Emirates Air Line fiasco, most people in the UK had written off cable cars as a valid public transport mode. But reading about the official gondola proposal for Vancouver’s Burnaby Mountain university campus as an ideal solution, this mode warrants another look.
Niche transport modes are ideal solutions, but only for specific geographic transport problems – funiculars, catamarans, hydrofoils, and cable cars. The key is not to fall for the salesperson’s or politician’s pitch, but to apply them appropriately. Cable cars are increasingly being constructed to connect topographically constrained urban areas in an inexpensive and quick manner.
Whilst London’s Emirates Air Line is appropriate for a wide river crossing, it’s not needed at all in that location – it serves no urban transport purpose there. It now operates at less than 10% capacity. Instead, it is a novelty, a folly, an expensive farce, a monument to empty gestures and lack of practical vision.
This is the next instalment in our occasional series looking at hitherto under-appreciated, sometimes maligned, lesser known, and oft idiosyncratic transport modes. We look at the recent trend of urban cable cars in operation, under construction, and under formal evaluation in western cities. The technology is becoming a legitimate city transport mode worthy of serious evaluation, as in South America, France, and soon British Columbia. They’re not just for tourists and expos any more.
Cable car, aerial tramway, gondola, cableway, ropeway, cable propelled transit (CPT) – there are many names for this mode. But there are nuances with each of these terms, although we shall be using cable car, cableway, and gondolas as they are the most common terms. Note that cable propulsion also includes land-based cable hauled trains and trams – like San Francisco’s famously terrestrial based cable cars – but they are not covered in this article. In Spanish and French, the airborne cableway terms are teleférico and téléphérique respectively. The similar English term telepheric is actually a faux ami, a false friend, as it is the name for conveyor wires to fly actors over a stage.
There are two main families of aerial cableways:
As long as the aerial tram and gondola cabin platforms have step free access, there is no technical reason that space cannot be set aside for wheelchairs, scooters, and/or bikes.
The Emirates Air Line in London is a mono-cable (suspended and propelled by a single cable), and it shuts down at winds greater than 30 mph (45 kph), which occurs about 30 days a year. Bi- or tri-cable systems provide greatly enhanced stability and safety, allowing for operation during major winds (up to 100 km/h).
Decades before cities of Europe discovered city téléphériques, South American cities have been pioneers of urban cableways. With hilly cities with many deprived favela neighbourhoods built on hillsides, with no road and where even the alleyways twist and turn, surface and underground options are limited.
So these cities looked to the past and created modern cable car lines to provide transportation there. They have drastically and cost-effectively cut commute times between poor and the more prosperous employment areas. Arrival of a cable car station has also marked the beginning of greater investment in previously neglected areas of the city, and often a reduction in crime.
In 2004, Medellin became the first city in the world to fully integrate cable cars into its existing metro network. But the Bolivian capital of La Paz, located in a canyon, now has six cable car lines transporting 160,000 passengers per day. Some of these lines carry 3,000 people per hour per direction (pphpd), and one carries 65,000 people daily. It is the world’s largest urban cable car system, over 16km long and with 25 stations across the city – Mi Teleférico is La Paz’s principal public transport system. Four additional lines are being planned.
Possibly best known to Britons as the port that harboured the Kriegsmarine battlecruisers Gneisenau and Scharnhorst during the Second World War, Brest opened France’s first urban téléphérique in November 2016. It links the sides of La Penfeld river where it flows through the port. Its cabins can transport up to 60 passengers and dash across the river in only three minutes. With departures every five minutes, the line transports 1 200 people per hour. One of the stations is near a station on the city’s tram line, and the cableway is fully fare integrated with the city’s transit network.
Brest téléphérique from station atop a historic stone buildingFurthermore, the descent of a cabin charges super-capacitors to store energy. New cables with a smoother profile have been installed to reduce rolling noise. The cable car has been a success, having met its millionth passenger ridership objective in less than two years from opening. And it is still popular. Here are some stunning aerial views of the Brest cable car line.
The headquarter city of aviation giant Airbus Industrie ironically has a 3km urban tri-cable téléphérique currently under construction, connecting medical science districts on either side of a small mountain. The Téléo téléphérique will connect three major traffic generators, l’Oncopole (The University Cancer Institute of Toulouse, with 10 000 jobs in the immediate area), Hôpital Rangueil (200 000 medical visits annually), and the Université Paul Sabatier (30 000 students) and Métro station, separated by a river and a 130 metre high small mountain and park.
Profile of Téléo téléphérique. TisséoThese three medical institutions work together closely, so there is a need to provide quick transport between them. However, it currently takes 30 minutes by car, and longer by public transport, to travel from one end to the other. But the téléphérique will cut that to only 10 minutes end to end, every 90 seconds, with the 15 cabins transporting more than 8 000 passengers daily as part of the Toulouse public transport network.
Render of Téléo téléphérique on mountain, Oncopole off to the rightWith pylons looking a bit like concrete Eiffel Towers poked into the ground, design has not be neglected either. And they are truly gigantesque in height, the tallest being 63 metres (207 ft) high. The line is expected to open in summer 2021.
Marseille is constructing a cableway to connect the Vieux Port with the major tourist site of Notre Dame de la Garde, in just six minutes. Systra, a part of SNCF, has done preliminary design work. The Old Port is a major ferry and cruise ship terminal, bringing in many tourists to see Notre-Dame de la Garde Basilica perched atop the city’s highest hill. Ten times cheaper than a tram connection, and three times cheaper than a Metro station, the téléphérique will remove many of the tourist buses from streets around the La Bonne Mère (the Good Mother), as the locals call the Basilica, by transporting up to 2 million people a year.
Two stations, Vieux Port and Notre Dame, with a supporting pylonCovering 1 km horizontally, and more importantly 150 m vertically, the téléphérique will link these two major tourist sites much more quietly and sustainably than buses. Unfortunately progress has been delayed by the pandemic.
In 2018, RATP studied 13 urban téléphérique projects in the Île-de-France region. The most promising was the Créteil Téléva in the southern suburbs, which will connect neighbourhoods divided by a highway, TGV line, freight railway, and a steep ridge. The Département du Val-de-Marne and Île-de-France Mobilités are proposing a five station, 4.5 km téléphérique between Créteil and Villeneuve-Saint-Georges to open by 2024, at an estimated cost of €132m (£119m).
The 13 evaluated Grand Paris téléphérique locations.Note that the only central Paris cableway link evaluated is between Gare de Lyon and Gare d’Austerlitz across the Seine, replacing a 900m walk (with no direct Métro connection) with a scenic and relaxing 500m téléphérique link for beluggaged passenger. Perhaps something for London to consider? However this intermodal Parisien railway station link was considered too expensive for what would for most travellers be a healthy walk.
The Créteil Téléval Câble A will start at Créteil – Pointe du Lac Métro Line 8 terminal station, replacing a 40 minute bus ride with a 17 minute sky ride, with cabins every 30 seconds and an average speed of 20 kph, fare integrated with the Île-de-France public transport network. The cabins will be fully accessible to people with reduced mobility. Progress is proceeding apace – Île-de-France Mobilités voted unanimously to approve the téléphérique on October 9, 2020.
Route of the Téléval Câble A. Île-de-France MobilitésThat Île-de-France Mobilités initiated a letter series (Câble A) for téléphériques indicates their high confidence in this new transport mode.
A number of other French cities are now evaluating and planning to install this form of urban transportation. Notably, riverine cities Bordeaux, Lyon, Nantes, Orléans, and Rouen are evaluating central city téléphériques to relieve congested bridges.
Grenoble has had a ‘tourist’ cable car since 1934, but the city plans to construct a new, six station, 3.7 km urban cableway for locals in the northern suburbs to cross two rivers, railways, and motorways, and to connect with three tram lines. More importantly, the téléphérique will link the Presqu’île university & scientific district on the (almost) island quickly and efficiently with local neighbourhoods.
Grenoble’s téléphérique will traverse a peri-orbital trajectoryOver the frontier in Switzerland, Geneva is evaluating a six station cable car line, connecting city neighbourhoods at various altitudes to the airport.
Vancouver’s climate is similar to Britain’s – rainy, with only occasional snow. Being nestled in the Rocky Mountains, cable cars have been used for decades on the province’s hundreds of ski hills. It turns out that this technology may well be used in Canada’s third largest city.
The problem statement: a busy university located on top of Burnaby Mountain, itself surrounded by single family home neighbourhoods. Articulated buses leave every two minutes up and down the 370 metre tall mountain to connect students, professors, and staff to the nearby SkyTrain line 2.7 km away. However, the diesel buses are polluting, and in snowy or sleet conditions they slip and slide dangerously.
This is an ideal situation to build a cable car.
To transport the 3,000 passengers per hour required to take almost all the buses off the mountain, the Burnaby Mountain Gondola is proposing to use large, 35 person cabins travelling every 60 seconds. The cabins will also have space for wheelchairs, mobility devices, scooters, and bikes.
This is an industrial strength cable car using a technology known as 3S, which unlike the more common gondolas like the Emirates Air Line and those used in a number of cities across Latin America. It utilises 3 cables with one for pulling the large gondolas and 2 for supporting their weight. The 3S gondola system provides the ability to operate in high wind conditions, increased ridership capacity, and energy-efficiency, which results in lower operating costs.
TransLink is Metro Vancouver’s public transportation network operator, and it has been leading the proposal, best demonstrated via this animation, in concert with Simon Fraser University (SFU). Three route options are being considered:
The three proposed Burnaby Mountain Gondola routes. TransLinkOptions 2 and 3 had been added to address the concerns privacy, potential noise, and impact on property values of homeowners under the route of Option 1. However it does not appear that TransLink is aware of the automatically self-opaquing window technology that has been successfully used on Brest’s cable cars since 2016. As for noise, Brest upgraded to smoother profile cables which greatly reduced this nuisance.
The TransLink survey of local residents and SFU commuters elicited 13,000 responses, which were 84% in favour of the scheme, although those under the path of Option 1 were only 34% in favour.
About 25,000 bus trips were made to campus each weekday pre-COVID, and after a return to normality is predicted to eventually increase to 40,000. The Gondola would replace the existing bus route to Production Way-University Station, which is prone to lengthy traffic delays that sometimes triples the journey time, and oft has frequent full bus passbys. The Gondola would allow reallocation of up to 26 buses. The line will also likely reduce parking atop the mountain, which is inline with city policy. Transit mode share to and from SFU is predicted to improve with the faster, more reliable, and more fun cableway.
In related news, TransLink just announced on September 3, 2020 the design-build contract award, a 5.7 km extension of the Millennium Line, the first phase of planned extension of the SkyTrain rail network to the University of British Columbia. Adding the gondola link to the Simon Fraser University’s mountain campus will connect Vancouver’s universities via the city’s rapid transit network, ushering in a new era in urban connectivity in the region.
Developed for the harsh climate of ski hills, gondolas are a hardy transplant to milder city environments. Furthermore, the mechanical and electrical simplicity of cableway systems has provided near 100% reliability. In case of electrical outages, lines have an emergency backup generator.
Cableways excel in transporting passengers over geographic obstacles and height differences, crossing rivers, valleys, and harbours, and scaling hills, many times cheaper than building a new road, rail line, tunnel, or bridge. And with a much smaller footprint than tram lines. A kilometre of cableway costs about half as much to install as the same length of tram line, and takes much less time to construct. Once approved, cableway systems can be designed and built in about a year.
Providing an unparalleled frequency of service that can be measured in seconds, urban cable cars have average operating speeds of 16-20 km/h. Compared to buses and trams in major cities averaging only 8-12km/h when in mixed traffic.
Furthermore, the increasingly crowded subterranean environment, as we have investigated, as well as the very high tunnelling costs, mean that underground is no longer the preferred option. And with busy city streets being increasingly shared between modes – vehicle traffic, bus lanes, and cycle lanes – the remaining option is looking up.
Cable cars provide scaleability – there is virtually no incremental cost in adding capacity and lowering wait times to gondolas, just add cabins to the line. With a streetcar or bus system, the incremental cost is significant to expand capacity or lower wait times, in expensive vehicles and staff to operate them.
With electric motors, cableways use significantly less energy and emit much less CO2 than diesel or hybrid buses, and are much quieter. Their simplicity provides near 100% reliability. In case of electrical outages, lines have an emergency backup generator. Operating costs are also quite low. Even though the Emirates Air Line carries only 10 percent of its capacity, it still generates revenue for TfL, such is the low cost of maintenance and motive electricity required.
Cableways are one of the world’s safest forms of transportation, having multiple redundant systems. The chances of a person being killed or serious injured on a cable car is less than than while skiing, ironically. In the United States, there has not been a lift-related fatality at a ski area since 1993. When an accident does occur, keep in mind another Rule of Thumb – the degree of media coverage of a given technology’s failure is inversely related to the chance of that failure’s occurrence.
However, cableways are more limited in capacity than terrestrial trams, as the chart below from a recent Edmonton (Canada) study demonstrates. The ‘rubber tyre-based tramway’ in the chart is more commonly known as bus rapid transit (BRT), unguided and on its own, usually separated, bus lanes. Note too that the tramways it cites are apparently all in mixed traffic, with the shortest tramway cars being a North American streetcar implementation – a traffic separated LRT has a maximum capacity of over 10,000 pphpd.
Maximum theoretical public transport capacities by mode. Edmonton Cable Car StudyFurthermore, cableways are not always well received by residents under the path of a line, who are worried about being observed from above. To address this issue, the Brest cabins are equipped with panes that automatically become opaque as the cable cars pass over certain areas.
In New York City, the Roosevelt Island AirTram line was constructed to serve the island’s new housing projects in the 1970s before a subway station was constructed. Used by locals and tourists, as it offers a scenic view of Manhattan. The AirTram cabins can hold 125 passengers, moving 1,500 passengers per hour (in both directions). Despite the subway station finally opening on the island in 1989, the tram remains very popular – the tram was completely refurbished in 2010 rather than removed. In recognition of its important public transit role, the fare was recently integrated with the MTA transit system.
Large cabins, but infrequent. Manhattan on the left, Roosevelt Island on the right.The Portland Oregon Aerial Tram is a 1 km line that connects the city’s South Waterfront District and campus with the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) atop Marquam Hill. It replaced a bus route which took up to 25 minutes, versus only 4 minutes by cable. OHSU personnel and transit pass holders ride free, but a round-trip ticket for sightseers is $4.35. Trams arrive every seven minutes and can carry 78 people per cabin, of whom 85% are typically hospital and student related, wit the remaining 15% comprising the general public and tourists. The lower tram station is a great multi-modal transit hub, connecting to the Portland Streetcar, buses, and bike racks. This integration has contributed to its success and more than 1.4 million passengers ride the cables annually.
Portland’s popular South Waterfront Aerial Tram, Streetcar, and Bike Station hubThe Aerial Tram is a runaway success – it is already approaching its maximum capacity ridership. However, unlike gondolas, aerial trams are not scalable – it is not possible to add more cabins. So Portland has ceased all marketing and promotions since the line cannot accommodate much more growth.
A simple Rule of Thumb – if a cable car line:
then it is likely a true urban transport link.
For instance, the Roosevelt Island and Portland Aerial Trams satisfy all three conditions. But the Emirates Air Line fails all three – Emirates Air Line journeys are a separate fare, not included in the TfL fare scheme. This reinforces the lack of utility of this line for locals.
Some cities do fare integrate their cable car line, but also offer a cheap return fare for sightseeing tourists.
Not being high speed, the design of cable car cabins is quite arbitrary – they need not be aerodynamic, just have large windows. Nonetheless, as cabin design is one aspect which is not constrained by operational requirements, it allows designers to make the cabins more attractive.
Here is a closeup of Brest’s modernised Art Deco styled cabin:
Bonjour Charlotte, comment aimez-vous votre travail?Now over to Portland…
Portland Aerial Tram’s large cabinPortland’s streamlined pods are reminiscent of the ‘power egg’ engine pods of the Imperial Airship Service’s R.101 airship:
R.101 ‘power egg’, one of fiveEven gondola towers can be made much more than utilitarian. We’ve already seen Toulouse’s inverted Eiffel Towers. Now, the one thing that the Emirates Air Line did right:
Emirates Air Line’s twirling pylons at North Greenwich, Daniel WrightShame about the bad planning of the line as a whole, as described by The Beauty of Transport’s Pie in the Sky review.
Cableway station land take is limited, as the space beneath the cables can be used for other purposes. Stations are sometimes built into upper levels of buildings for even less urban impact, as in Brest. Cabins use a detachable grip to grab the cable, which automatically releases when it arrives in a station, reattaching itself once the cabin is ready to leave again.
Ideally, the stations are sited near or in two or more passenger traffic generators or a transit hub.
The only demographic not likely to use cableways are acrophobes, those afraid of heights, which comprise around 10 percent of the population (including the author). However with willpower, and the cumulative benefits of a shorter commute, this can be overcome.
The low cost and go-anywhere ability of cable car lines lends itself to being a crayonista’s dream (crayonista being the name for people who ‘crayon’ new rapid lines on maps, usually without regard to practicality, cost, or physical restrictions). Hence elected and aspiring politicians down to the very local level are oft tempted to propose cable cars pet schemes. As a result, all cable propelled transport proposals must be evaluated by the level of official interest they generate.
Taking the most recent urban aerial tram cost, Vancouver’s Burnaby Mountain’s estimate of $73m/km or £43m/km, this seems pricey, only about 30% lower than a much higher capacity rail tramway. However, cableway costs must be seen in comparison to a bridge or tunnel solution over the transport encumbrance, which would be many times that cost. A funicular would be necessary at Burnaby Mountain due to the steep road, but the lower funicular station would still be over a kilometre from the SkyTrain station.
The United Kingdom is not known for its gondolas. Other than Emirates Air Line, there are three other gondola systems in the country, but none in urban settings: the Nevis Range gondola near Fort William, Scotland, the Skyride at the Alton Towers theme park, and the Heights of Abraham Cable Car in Matlock Bath.
Back in London, however, for its study for a new pedestrians and cyclists river crossing between Rotherhithe and Canary Wharf, TfL did evaluate a cable car option. The mandated height for the Thames navigation channel is 60m above Mean High Water Springs – the clearance under the Emirates Air Line (the clearance at Tower Bridge is only 42.5m).
But TfL discounted a Rotherhithe – Canary Wharf cableway crossing at an early stage, stating it was “not feasible”, but providing no explanation. Sustrans in 2015 had estimated capability to provide 13,000 journeys a day for this crossing, independent of mode. The maximum capacity of existing cable car systems is 6,000 to 8,000 pphpd, however bringing bikes and mobility devices on board would greatly decrease those numbers. Yet, even at half the maximum cable car capacity, 4,000 pphpd, at 16 hours a day in both directions, would provide transport for 128,000 people per day. So we suspect that Canary Wharf objected to a cable car option (they are notoriously demanding), perhaps as not befitting the financial centre’s stature and image, given the ridicule that the Emirates Air Line has elicited. It is important to note that the relations between Canary Wharf Group and the Mayor have been a bit fraught, as in the Mayor Khan’s view Canary Wharf will be the main beneficiaries of this improved cross river link, so should be paying more towards it.
The three potential options that were shortlisted for the Rotherhithe and Canary Wharf crossing for further assessment and review were: a navigable bridge (which still allows shipping to pass), a tunnel, and an enhanced ferry. Since the initial public consultation, the preferred navigable bridge was found to be too expensive, given the large bridge footings necessary for a sufficiently high bridge to allow ships to pass.
Unfortunately with TfL’s budgetary problems, and the COVID lockdowns hammering revenues, there is currently no money to direct towards improving this link. Perchance TfL could move an existing and much under-utilised asset?
Perhaps TfL’s ongoing budgetary crisis and cross Thames connectivity needs might force them to look again at cable cars for Thames crossings, by moving the Emirates Air Line to a more useful location. Eastern Docklands has a paucity of pedestrian / cycle crossings, so as long as the new route actually serves a transport demand, it’s worth moving the Air Line millstone.
Urban gondolas are successful where they are a cost effective solution that cannot inexpensively be overcome by other options, such as challenging geographical locations. And connect two passenger nodes, with physical and fare integration with the city’s public transport network.
South American cities built cable cars to economically depressed and isolated neighbourhoods. Where oh where in London fits this description? Thamesmead.
Many thanks to Reece Martin (RMTransit on YouTube) for information on the Burnaby Mountain Gondola and http://gondolaproject.com/ for urban system lists and technical details.
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