On 05/08/2016 04:02 AM, Shenoy N wrote:
Does Mumbai have the hills for a cable car system?
Aerial Tramways.
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.
I've been on aerial tramways with a US rating of 35 people. Given that
Americans are normally oversize, you might well stuff two to three times
that many in a culture with small personal space. That said, for speed
of loading and advantages of smaller support structures, a 12-person car
is probably about as large as is smart.
For a commuter system, it sounds like you'll want a system that can put
multiple cars on the wire. The trick to this is putting the cars on and
off. The Von Roll system did this very neatly (though with much smaller
cars), but that removable clamp was a single failure point and a source
of much wear on the cable, resulting in the need for frequent
replacement, not to mention needing space at one or more stations to
store all of the cars. High winds are also a source of reliability
problems, and a source of wrecks if rules aren't followed strictly.
Hmmm... Maybe if boarding was done with moving sidewalks, it would be
possible to load the cars while still attached to the cable without
slowing the transit speed excessively. This would simplify mounting,
permit a permanent link to the cable, but would make it impossible to
take the cars off the wire in high winds.
Looks like an interesting engineering (and social) challenge, even with
the various components being generally available. Let me know if you
need a referral to someone with experience in this field.
Cheers,
/ Bruce /
