Doppelmayr
Doppelmayr / Garaventa is the king of innovation in the traditional urban gondola world - or what the gondola pro’s call “ropeways”. They have been at the top of the pile when it comes to new concepts for decades. So, the prevailing logic is… if anyone is going to pull off an urban supergondola transportation system, putting your money on Doppelmayr would be a wise bet.
Back in 2021, they revealed a notably uncreative named “Future Concept Urban” project as part of their “Insights: Inspired by Motion” company update. Go ahead… nerd out on the full presentation - it’s like an Apple product release for gondola nerds. At the end you’ll find the “Future Concept Urban” section.
Thomas Pichler (CEO Doppelmayr Group) sets it up by saying:
“Mobility is set to remain a mega-trend in the future and ropeways will definitely play a key role when it comes to implementing sustainable and eco-friendly mobility solutions within a short space of time, whether it’s on the mountainside or in cities. We are convinced, in cities especially, it will be a mix of different technologies networking together and complimenting one another.”
Preach it Thomas… we couldn’t agree more. Then the vision of “Future Concept Urban” is unveiled:
There hasn’t been much news about where this initiative is headed in the years since. At one point, upBUS was planning to test transferring a full-sized Doppelmayr gondola cabin to a “skate”. Currently, the skates are not autonomous and the transfer from the cableway onto the skate is slow and heavily monitored. We’ll just have to wait and see if Doppelmayr is truly working on this.
Is it a supergondola?
Well, it checks a lot of boxes. There’s cabins coming in on cable and switching to some form of rigid guideway. Detaching further to an autonomous skate would certainly add flexibility, but how well would a big cabin move around a city? Also, that functionality introduces a lot of safety factors into an otherwise lightweight cabin that will suddenly require airbags, etc.
Leaving out the idea of transferring to some sort of autonomous skate - as that seems very much like distant future gazing - if it were going to work, the entire system would likely need to get scaled down in size so it could fit into an urban environment.
You have to think that’s what Doppelmayr are going to do ultimately. And if anyone could pull it off, the massive team at Doppelmayr could be the ones to do it.
When will it happen?
No idea. Next year? Maybe never? There’s currently not many updates to indicate it’s actually being worked on… but again, Doppelmayr do have the engineering and market savvy to pull it off.