On 8 May 2016 at 02:55, Bruce A. Metcalf <bruce.metc...@figzu.com> wrote:
> On 05/07/2016 04:38 PM, Thaths wrote: > >> On Sun, May 8, 2016 at 1:24 AM Shenoy N <sheno...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> The other day I was in a meeting with some automotive type people to help >>> a >>> friend find products to sell to car companies and a German gent, who was >>> there to sell technologies, sprang a cable car rapid transport system on >>> us >>> >>> >>> Does Mumbai have the hills for a cable car system? >> > > I can't speak for others, but I can't tell what sort of "cable car" system > is being discussed. I know of three distinctly different technologies that > go by that name: > > 1. Streetcars powered by a moving cable under the roadway; San Francisco's > are the most famous example. > > 2. Funicular railways, which generally balance two cars on a hill with a > cable wrapping around a powered pully at the top. > > 3. Aerial tramways, where cabins are elevated above the ground. These can > be a single car, two cars, or multiple cars in a loop. > > Much easier to discuss if we know what we're talking about. > > Cheers, > / Bruce / > > Aerial Tramways. Mumbai has no room for 1 and 2. Hills are not required, Thaths, it's just that cable cars are usually seen in hilly places because of the difficulty and cost involved in building roads there. Mumbai has a LOT of encroachment. Even a bus rapid transport system is difficult to implement because most of the encroachers are protected under a squatter's rights law. The aerial cable car system seems perfect for this city. But there ARE some obvious problems. 1. The capacity of a cable car is about 12 people. This means that for the high commuting population that Mumbai has, you'll need one hell of a lot of cars. The Mumbai local train system, for example, carries 7.5 million people daily. Cable car lines in Bolivia and other latin american countries, carry something of the order of 100,000 a day. 2. They appear to be slow (though, to be fair, the distances are usually quite small because they can just go over obstacles. -- Narendra Shenoy http://narendrashenoy.blogspot.com
