Gondolas as Mass-Transit

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Seems like my city would have been a lot better off with a few gondolas instead of the $2+ billion Central Subway project. With a downtown that gets absolutely slammed with traffic, steep hills north of downtown where bus service sucks, and major tourist areas within a mile of the financial district, this city would appear to be a perfect candidate.

[salm]

On reason it might seem that trams, busses and subways can transport a lot more people is that the indivudual cars can hold more pepople. But gondolas run in continous stream while the other options only run every X minutes.

[Me2005]

On reason it might seem that trams, busses and subways can transport a lot more people is that the indivudual cars can hold more pepople. But gondolas run in continous stream while the other options only run every X minutes.

It also strikes me that, so long as your routes all use the same basic setup, you could adjust the number of gondolas on any given route to some extent. A route getting too few passengers could have the cabins transferred to one that is getting more, or one getting big loads could have larger cabins installed. Or you could install the lines with a few cabins, then as ridership (and revenue) increases, add more cabins. It'd be a much more adaptable system than the other options.

[LaCroix]

On reason it might seem that trams, busses and subways can transport a lot more people is that the indivudual cars can hold more pepople. But gondolas run in continous stream while the other options only run every X minutes.

It also strikes me that, so long as your routes all use the same basic setup, you could adjust the number of gondolas on any given route to some extent. A route getting too few passengers could have the cabins transferred to one that is getting more, or one getting big loads could have larger cabins installed. Or you could install the lines with a few cabins, then as ridership (and revenue) increases, add more cabins. It'd be a much more adaptable system than the other options.

Especially as the gondola system works by detaching the gondola at the station, waiting for people to get in, and then reattaching to the main cable. You could change intervals on the fly, to an extent.

[jwl]

Gondola lift capacity (single link) is 2000 to 6000 people/hour depending on whether you use single cable or multi (drive + support) cable. To pick a couple of local examples, light rail capacity is about 1600 (South London TramLink) to 5500 (London Docklands Light Railway core) people per hour depending on whether you use fully segregated track and advanced signals/controls. I'd note that the light rail capacity assumes standing passengers packed to capacity, whereas gondolas are usually all-seater. For comparison London deep tube lines have a capacity of approx 15,000* people/hour and London CrossRail (underground heavy rail) will have a capacity of approx 20,000 people/hour, but obviously the infrastructure cost for those is extreme.

* Officially; in practice people squash in so tightly for rush hour central segments that the actual peak capacity is probably at least 10% more.

On that note, are gondolas still safe if you overload them? Because if you use it for mass transport people are inevitably going to try to cram as many people in them as possible.

[madd0ct0r]

In a word, yes. Compared to the design load weight of the carriage and the design load of a crowd (larger then really possible, at least in UK), and the design wind loading there's still a large safety factor.

[Me2005]

On that note, are gondolas still safe if you overload them? Because if you use it for mass transport people are inevitably going to try to cram as many people in them as possible.

I'm not even sure that'd be possible with people. You run out of volume at some point.

Some proponents and proposals I saw recommended using the gondolas as cargo transporters when not in use for passengers (likely midday); and it'd be much easier to overload with cargo than with people. Adding an overload system like an elevator has wouldn't be unreasonable either.