Edition 2/2017

The first highlight for the Oakland Zoo’s 56-acre expansion into the new exhibit known as the California Trail is their new 8-passenger-gondola and new restaurant (The Landing Café) overlooking the San Francisco Bay.

Design the future and test it today: In cooperation with the City of Karlsruhe, PTV Group has established a Mobility Lab which officially opened on 22 June 2017. Here, various traffic planning- and model solutions will be linked to one another, and to other solutions, in order to test new ideas and approaches, as well as their effects on cities and regions world-wide.

A bridge or a tunnel – these are usually the only options considered when possible ways of crossing a river are discussed. Not in the Polish city of Wrocław. The local Technical University has decided for a compact cable car instead. “Polinka” has been connecting the new campus located west of the river Oder with the “old” university grounds on its east bank since 2014.

More and more are cableways set up also in urban areas. But so far, they are only built out of necessity. For example when a large event is planned..

The 2-track reversible cableway with a suspension cable connecting San Genesio (Jenesien), a small community of 3,000, with Bolzano, was built in 1937 by the South Tyrolean cableway pioneer, Luis Zuegg (the Bleichert/Zuegg system). It has been connecting the village, situated 700 meters above Bolzano, with the South Tyrolean metropolis ever since. In 2020 it is to be renewed.

The Roosevelt Island Operating Company (RIOC), owner of the aerial tramway in New York City, has renewed its contract with POMA Group for five more years (until 2022) to operate and maintain its aerial tramway, linking Roosevelt Island to the Upper East Side of Manhattan. This operation and maintenance contract has been fulfilled on a daily basis since 2010 by teams from LPOA (Leitner Poma of America), the US subsidiary of POMA.

During an interview with SI, Anton Seeber, President of LEITNER Group, talks about the political pressure in favor of urban cableways in South America, the concerns and resentment against them in Europe, and why the future speaks for urban cableways.

From The New York Times to Süddeutsche Zeitung, from Le Parisien to Daily Express and from La Stampa to The Australian – all the world’s leading papers enthusiastically report on the world’s largest urban cableway network in La Paz. And indeed: this project in Bolivia is an enduring sensation. It is being implemented by Doppelmayr in two phases; phase II is in full swing.

Ropeways are considered the future of urban space mobility models. A very young, spectacular example is the ropeway “Gardens of the World – Berlin” from LEITNER ropeways. It became the people’s absolute champion in a very short period of time and shows how much people appreciate ecological and economical transport solutions. Since the ropeway’s opening on April 13, 2017, its investor, builder and operator, LEITNER ropeways, has already recorded 1,000,000 rides.

Ropeways – Motion and Emotion” was the title of the 11th International Ropeway Congress held at the beginning of June for the first time ever in Bolzano. 350 participants from 30 countries attended the event to exchange industry expertise and learn about new developments and trends.

The DOPPELMAYR gondola lift on the Portuguese island of Madeira has become a real tourist attraction. The cable car, built in 2000, runs from Funchal to Monte and can transport up to 800 passengers per hour in its 8-seat gondolas. It operates 365 days a year and the frequency of its use is very high. A modern rescue plan is thus essential.

Cableways used to be quite common in the Ruhr area in the past. They were built and used for coal transport. Now people are considering whether the old tradition should be revived. Not to transport coal but to save it—and, especially, to relieve local traffic.

There is a general agreement worldwide that our environment is increasingly polluted due to the ever growing volume of traffic. And that solutions must be found. What has already been implemented in Asia and Latin America, repeatedly and with success, remains only the subject of discussions in Europe. But even here, the discussions are getting more heated.

Since its opening five years ago, the urban cable car Emirates Air Line in London has transported without accident 8.5 million passengers over more than 26,000 operating hours – all that with a 99,94 per cent availability.

Lushan is one of China’s most famous spots and a very popular trip destination – for locals and tourists alike. With the purpose to improve its infrastructure and increase visitor comfort, the Doppelmayr/Garaventa Group had the privilege of implementing a modern cableway here. The very first triple-cable aerial lift in China opened to the public on 27 July 2017.

The Wuppertal Suspension Railway is world-famous. Its operation began on March 1, 1901. For many years now, the North Rhine-Westphalian city has been discussing whether a cable car should also be built to supplement the existing public transport network.

Martin Assmann is responsible for urban and transport planning in Dornbirn. Sieditor, Birke Müller, spoke with him about the much-discussed city cable car project Wälderbahn.

A taxi driving through the air - something we only know from science-fi ction fi lms so far. If things continue to run as the DOPPELMAYR technicians imagine, it could become reality in the near future.

October in Kaohsiung is devoted to soft mobility. The EcoMobility World Festival will show, for a period of one month, what cities could look like if they reduced their car traffic. In addition, a four-day Congress with international participation should ensure that future-oriented common solutions are found and developed.

Whether a metropolis by the sea or a town in the mountains – every community struggles with communal vehicle corrosion. Winter road maintenance fleets suffer from wet and cold conditions and road salt, air containing particles of sea-water clog cleaning machines and road sweepers on beach promenades.

Sigma Smart Air is much more than just the previously known compressed-air-systems service. Until now, maintenance was performed either in an unplanned way upon the customer’s request or at fixed time intervals. There was always the risk that, depending on the actual number of operating hours, maintenance was performed either too early or too late. Both meant additional costs for the operator.

Busan is not only South Korea’s second largest city. Busan is a reflection of the future, an urban adventure found directly at the Sea of Japan. Busan is surrounded by wooded hills, beaches, hot springs and is famous for its seafood. But the city is also home to one of the most important ports, a living space for 3.5 million people, and a No. 1 industrial center. It is here that a new DOPPELMAYR circulating gondola lift, Busan Air Cruise, has been built for the purposes of local transport, leisure and tourism.

Since 2009, when the idea of Thomas Kantke and Stefan Baumgartner materialized into a plan, and certainly since its presentation in 2014, many people have been very enthusiastic about the prospect of a 3S-cableway to run between the airport and the exhibition center, the technical background of which has been developed meticulously by the two planners. Soon after, it became a subject of attention even in local politics. Now one hopes that the old saying is right: All good things are worth waiting for.

The dream of a responsible citizen who cares about the cleanliness of his city, or a visitor who shows consideration for the beauty of the host town, is still alive. But it is just not visible in daily life.  Technology is needed to help us keep our public space attractive and hygienic. ZAUGG has newly defined such technology with its Steambeast.

The first highlight for the Oakland Zoo’s 56-acre expansion into the new exhibit known as the California Trail is their new 8 passenger gondola and new restaurant (The Landing Café) overlooking the San Francisco Bay.

October in Kaohsiung is devoted to soft mobility. The EcoMobility World Festival will show, for a period of one month, what cities could look like if they reduced their car traffic. In addition, a four-day Congress with international participation should ensure that future-oriented common solutions are found and developed.

Germany’s fourth largest city is famous not only for its impressive cathedral and good beer; Cologne boasts also a historic cableway that has a lot to offer.

With its 253 cableway enterprises, Austria is quite rich in alpine mountain railways. But so far, it does not have a single urban cableway. But even the motherland of mountain railways is experiencing a change in thinking. Urban installations are being discussed in a number of cities - as many as three cableway projects are under discussion in the capital city of Vienna.