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Dec 15, 2015
Cable Transit Industry, Doppelmayr, Public Transit, Safety

Ropeway Redux: Highlights From Doppelmayr’s Comprehensive Magazine

Earlier this year, Doppelmayr Urban Solutions produced an attractively art directed brochure-cum-magazine called Ropeways in the urban environment. It compiles the many benefits of cable cars (or ropeways as they’re called in the industry) as urban transportation. The following is a summary of the magazine’s main points. The content is very useful for anyone looking...

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Oct 29, 2015
Cable Transit Industry, Fatzer

The Logistics of Transporting a Fatzer Rope

Recently we talked about Fatzer’s rope performance and the issue of replacing the cable on existing gondola infrastructure. We used Barcelona’s Montjuïc Cable Car as an example, quoting this client of Fatzer’s thorough satisfaction with the performance of their city’s new rope. But we didn’t consider the delivery that rope. Barcelona is over 1,000km away...

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Oct 07, 2015
Cable Transit Industry, High Speed Rail, Safety, Thoughts

Public Transit: Safety Should Never Be Compromised

Note: this is a repost from an original article in 2012. Last week, guest blogger Ryan O’Connor, wrote a brief analysis on the state of HSR (high speed rail) and the potential implications and lessons cable can learn from China’s recent love affair with rail. If you haven’t been keeping up-to-date with transportation news in...

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Aug 05, 2015
Announcements, Cable Transit Industry, Updates

New Urban Gondola in Bogota

  Bogota, Colombia’s capital city of 6.7 million residents, will be adding an urban cable car system to its transit network. Doppelmayr, the world leader in ropeways, won and signed the contract to build this aerial transport system on July 16, 2015. Similar to many other urban cable cars in South America, Bogota’s detachable gondola will be...

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Jan 09, 2013
Cable Transit Industry, Design Considerations, Innovations, Marketing Issues

User-Controlled Smart Glass (Electrochromic Shades) on Boeing 787 and Lessons for Aerial Cable Cars

Throughout our time on the Gondola Project, we’ve seen many transport systems install smart glass windows (i.e. Morizo Gondola in Japan and Bukit Panjang LRT in Singapore). However, these systems did not offer users the ability to control when the glass becomes “frosted” nor the amount of “frostiness”. Enter Boeing’s newest aircraft, the 787 Dreamliner. These planes...

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Sep 12, 2012
Cable Transit Industry, Emirates Air Line, Engineering, Innovations

How the London Emirates Air Line Cable Car Powers its Cabins

The issue of energy has come up a lot when we talk about urban cable systems — and for a good reason. If cable is going to succeed as the modern, comfortable, city transit technology it claims to be, then such amenities as heating, air conditioning, video screens, wifi, and two-way communication systems are going...

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Aug 10, 2011
Cable Transit Industry, Marketing Issues, Questions

EcoCities and Cable: Tianjin Ecocity (Photos Summer 2011 Status)

On a recent trip to China, I had the opportunity to visit a site that few planners outside of China have yet to see. First announced in 2008, Tianjin Ecocity is a large, ecological development designed to encourage sustainable building and living practices and promote future “green” developments. Not to mention this is possibly the...

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Jul 27, 2011
Cable Transit Industry, Marketing Issues, Policy

Public Transit: Politics, Procurement Policy and Taxpayer Dollars

A recent article in the Globe and Mail discusses the relationship between mass transit and political agendas. It appears that throughout the world high-stakes rail projects worth millions or even billions of dollars are becoming entangled in a struggle that pits the bottom line against local interests. In this age of globalization, companies around the...

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Jan 26, 2011
Cable Transit Industry

Chinese Knock-Offs?

Ski hills are great and all, but the market’s limited. We’re not building any more mountains (except in Dubai) and the mountains we do have are being adversely effected by global warming – at least when it comes to ski conditions. That’s not much of a growth market. The urban market, however, is virtually limitless....

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