Aerobus Possiblility in Winnipeg
 

Whenever the city talks about RT, it's always BRT, or LRT. But there are many other options. Aerobus seems like a pretty good option, it is cheap, and has the capacity of LRT. $15-30 million per mi ($9-18 million per km).

How about a Route 90 line so that people who don't want to deal with the traffic can still live in Waverly West, and work in Centreport.

www.aerobus.com

I thought that read "AIRBUS possibility in Winnipeg" and nearly fainted... if we ever got an Airbus anything, I think our economy would explode.

Anyways, that does sound like a neat option! Would it work in winter, though?

Well this is definitely thinking outside of the box. I like it.

Yes, a new Airbus factory... a step up from landing gear doors!Yes, it will work in winter. They did it in Quebec, so it should work here.

This intrigues me, but that website's "In the News" link has an article from 2007. Doesn't seem very active. Are they just bad at updating their site? Any recent installations?

The aesthetics of the website look about 7 years old too.

The fact that Aerobus appears to have been around since the 70s and the installations are limited to some parks and resorts doesn't inspire much confidence.

No one works in Centreport. It consists of a road and farm fields. There is nowhere there to work.

This sounds like a company the City was talking to just before they started the SW Transitway - Glen Laubenstein wanted to look at something different. It almost stalled the busway (again)

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/loc...y_studied.html

There were talks of a cable car setup to transport from UofM to St.Vital mall some years ago.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manito...river-1.725059

Aerobus projects have rarely been implemented. Given resistance to change it seems unlikely to occur in Winnipeg, especially without major precedent.

I saw a show where a A South American city uses them for public transport.

Skypods: Are gondolas the next big thing in urban transport?

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/13/bu...ban-transport/

Gondolas are an effective form of transportation in places with steep inclines like ski hills and vast cities that spawl up mountainsides. What remains to be determined is if they are effective in flatlands. Also, these "Aerobuses" aren't cable cars, the support cable/structure is fixed and these traverse along them, rather than the cable itself being driven. I think each presents different engineering challenges.

Does anyone know if there are other more modern installations of something more similar to the Aerobus design?

I think that Rio de Janeiro has some sort of gondola system going through its favelas as the try to gentrify them..? Other than that, I don't think anything super cutting edge is in the works around the world.

The business case for it looks sound.

-uses existing right of ways
-uses cable instead of steel
-fewer support columns needed
-in Manitoba at least, it could be powered by cheap electricity.

I wonder why this type of technology isn't more common in cities?

How fast do they go?

^ Aerobus Problems

Aerobus, however, was designed primarily as an urban "people mover," so it doesn't meet all our requirements for an interurban transportation system.

One problem is that the track is allowed to bow upwards between supports when there is no car running on it. This leads to significant vertical distortion of the track as the car passes; the rate at which this can be allowed to happen limits the permissible speed of the car. This problem can be solved by replacing the simple suspension system with a two-way cable truss (see Irvine, 1981) which essentially preloads the suspension system and keeps the track straight whether loaded or unloaded.

Another problem is curves: Aerobus uses a rigid rail for changes in direction. This is expensive structurally and economically and favors small-radius curves which impose speed limits and difficulties with the car's suspension. What is needed is a method of supporting gradual curves with cables alone, just like the straightaways, along with a track design that allows the cars to "bank" or lean into the curve - in other words, a track that is torsionally soft without sacrifice of tensile strength. This problem has not yet been solved, but is probably solvable and is under study.

http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Aerial_Ropeways

You can list all the positives for it's use, but problems exist that have not been solved therefore, no one will use the system in any large scale as a reliable transportation option. Will this change in the future possibly, until then it's hasn't been proven to be a reliable or viable option.

80 kph

Even if it had no cables, and was completely a fixed guideway, wouldn't it still be at a competitive price with LRT?

Without looking at costs, it very well could be close in feasibility to LRT/km.

But if your talking about removing the cables for a fixed system, we wouldn't be talking about the Aerobus PRT system anymore. The concept was designed to use cables, remove them and the whole concept is kind of a moot point?

We're back at alternative methods of LRT.