Scheduled to open in Summer 2016, the Brest Cable Car (Téléphérique de Brest) will be France’s first urban cable car.
Originally designed as a Funitel, the system will use an Aerial Tram configuration and will employ some very special design techniques to minimize station size and cost. Can anyone spot what this is? 😉
4 Comments
At the vizualization I don’t see a funitel. The system I can see is not detachable. Is it an aerial tram?
In fact the system was designed as a Funitel first, but the limited spaces available in stations obliged to choose an ATW with single traction ringropes for each cabin, mostly because in that way it will be possible to rescue a blocked cabin with the another – using ladders to reach up and down, and also change the traction rope from a ring to another.
It is similar to the Roosevelt Island Tram for ropes position, but the double traction loop is patented by Bartholet
Thanks for the clarification GiorgioXT. I actually checked BMF’s media release prior to the post but should’ve realized that “Funitel-style suspension” meant something else. http://www.bmf-ag.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/customers/Seilbahnen/News/Brest_Englisch.pdf
to be accurate, the project was originally designed as a funitel by the client’s advisor, but the competition specifications also stated that a single rope system was forbidden. As the french regulation considers the funitel as a single rope system and as the car designer wanted a really huge cabin, another innovative solution had to be invented.
But there is one point that I still don’t understand: the french regulation considers that a cabin which can host more than 39 persons must embark a specialized driver, but this particular cabin can host nearly 80 persons without such a driver (the trick is that the cabin is split in half by a glazed partition). I think this is borderline unsafe.