AERIAL GONDOLA and CABLE CAR: CONSULTING, STUDIES, DESIGN, ENGINEERING
Cable Propelled Transit (CPT) / Aerial Cable Transit (ACT) Specialists:
Eco-Transit (ECO) provides specialist consultant services for Cable Car, Aerial Tramway, Aerial Gondola, and Funicular planning, design, feasibility studies and engineering for both "urban transit" cable car and "recreation attraction" gondola projects. Our study and project consulting services encompass the full range of planning, engineering, feasibility study, project management, inspection, and certification of all modes of cable propelled transportation systems. Our gondola project services are independent from the lift and cable car manufacturers to assure impartiality and objectivity in our studies and implementations. ECO provides full-service consulting services for the rapidly expanding Aerial Cable Transit (ACT) industry in urban environments as rapid transit, and gondolas and cable cars as resort transportation, and tourism attractions. ECO's consulting services for urban aerial transit systems, tourism attractions, and industrial systems are provided to municipalities, project stakeholders, private developers, and transportation engineering / architectural teams. Eco-Transit sets itself apart in the aerial cable transit and recreation industries by emphasizing the human element of "Sense of Place", and the environmental element of promoting "Green Transit" mobility solutions that are ECO-Mobile and ECO-Sustainable.
Although Eco-Transit is an independent consultancy, our senior staff originates from the aerial cableway manufacturing, engineering and regulatory industries, which gives our team great insight and experience when we provide our consulting services for aerial cableway studies and projects. Of course, during studies and projects, we work with and are very familiar with the technologies of the current lift industry manufacturers’ Doppelmayr, Leitner, Poma, MND / Bartholet and others. We have also collaborated on cableway studies with some of the major worldwide architectural and engineering (A&E) firms such as Aecom, Jacobs, WSP, Parsons Group, Parametrix, Nelson-Nygaard, Parsons-Brinkerhoff, Golder, Lee-Elliott, Skidmore-Owings-Merrill, Intrawest, SOSH and Kimley-Horn. For both domestic and international assignments, we have engineers accredited under the passenger ropeway standards of the European CEN Standard, American ANSI B77 Standard and Canadian CSA Z-98 Standard. Two of Eco-Transit’s senior consultants are certified gondola and aerial tramway inspectors in North America.
URBAN TRANSIT - Aerial Cable Transit (ACT), or Cable Propelled Transit (CPT) is the use of aerial cableways in the form of aerial gondolas, cable cars or tramways as a transit mode for public transportation in resort and more particularly, urban environments. Aerial Cableways are now being studied and implemented for specific urban routes by city planners and government entities on an equal footing alongside other rapid transit modes, such as bus rapid transit, light rail and automated people movers. ACT systems can operate at speeds up to 20 mph and can be designed as reversible aerial tramways with vehicles up to 250 passengers each and capacities up to 2,000 pph per direction, or as circulating aerial gondolas with vehicles up to 35 passengers each and capacities up to 6,000 pph per direction. Aerial gondolas can be designed as mono-cable systems (1S) or (MGD), bi-cable systems (2S) or (BGD), or tri-cable systems (3S) or (TGD), depending upon their intended public transit or recreational routes, specifications, and applications.
Eco-Transit offers unique qualifications to clients for diverse types of cableway projects and the interfacing of cable driven transit systems with other modes of transit and associated mixed use development. The environmental benefits of this specialized form of “Green Transit” are showcased and implemented in our feasibility studies and designs for urban projects. Special attention is given to Transit Oriented Development (TOD) and local neighborhood improvement opportunities within the ACT project areas, such as new residential and commercial development around the stations, and community centers and transit hubs to link with other transit modes. This area of ECO's expertise concentrates on community revenue generators and also social enrichment generators that can be integrated with the ACT project. An attention to the planning details associated with the layout of the Aerial People Mover routes and station locations can minimize any adverse impacts and maximize the socio-economic benefits to the surrounding neighborhood when the projects are developed and built out.
The implementation of ACT for urban public transit is a relatively new phenomenum, although New York City constructed the Roosevelt Island Tramway for public transportation in 1975 and it operates reliably to this day. Many of the latest generation urban gondolas are located in Mexico and South America, operating in heavily traffic congested cities such as Mexico City, Medellin, Bogota, Caracas and La Paz, with the largest system in La Paz being 20 miles in length with 30 stations and transporting over 45 million passengers per year. Worldwide, it is estimated that over 500 million passengers are now transported each year on installed urban ACT systems. This is the same amount of passengers transported annually in the U.S. by all of our railroads and light rail systems combined. And for further reference, the 500 million annual passengers transported on ACT worldwide, is one half of the passengers transported annually by all airlines domestically in the U.S., and all airlines into and out of the U.S.
ATTRACTION / RECREATION - In addition to the urban transit application for aerial gondolas, cable cars and tramways is the recreational attraction application for resorts and other locations frequented by large numbers of visitors and tourists. Attraction aerial cableways are implemented as pure entertainment venues for their scenic views or as public transport at resorts and tourism destinations. As with ACT systems, Attraction cableways can operate at speeds up to 20 mph and can be designed as reversible aerial tramways with vehicles up to 250 passengers each and capacities up to 2,000 pph per direction, or as circulating aerial gondolas with vehicles up to 35 passengers each and capacities up to 6,000 pph per direction. Aerial gondolas can be designed as mono-cable systems (1S), bi-cable systems (2S), or tri-cable systems (3S) depending upon the recreational routes and needs.
Aerial cableways providing rapid transit service in urban environments as ACT can also benefit from the attraction value of gondolas and cable cars if the urban area has scenic aerial views and benefits from high visitor and tourism numbers. Although the primary purpose of an aerial cableway may be as a transit system, if the above scenic value and tourism numbers are present, visitors will see the cableway system as a regional attraction and ride it for recreation rather than as public transit for locals and commuters. One time tourism users are also willing to pay higher attraction fares than transit user fares. As an added benefit, this additional attraction ridership revenue can subsidize, or even fully pay for the ACT system's annual Operation and Maintenance (O&M) costs.
ECO-TRANSIT offers the following services for Aerial Cableway Projects:
- Consultation with clients; presentations to stakeholders; public information meetings.
- Participation with A&E teams for transit studies involving aerial cableway technology.
- Serve as owner representative for liaison with stakeholders, regulators and third parties.
- Route alternatives analysis for the proposed alignment, towers and station locations.
- Planning for transit-oriented development (TOD) and station area design & development.
- Develop specifications and cost estimates for the cableway engineering, equipment, installation and O&M budgets.
- Technical and economic Feasibility Studies and financial proformas for proposed cableway projects.
- Engineering, line calculations, profiles and drawing packages for cableway design.
- Assistance with tender documents; Requests for Proposal (RFP), etc. to allow owner to solicit bids from engineers, architects, suppliers, and lift manufacturers.
- Evaluation of third party RFP response bid proposals and coordination of procurement with agency or owner.
- Project management (PM), construction management and quality assurance (QA) for cableway projects.
- Inspections, commissioning, load testing and certification of aerial cableways.
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