New solutions offer answer to missing links

Of the challenges facing the transport system, some are familiar and resource-hungry – such as strategic investment in the highways and rail networks – whilst others are management-hungry conundrums, like dealing with urban traffic and parking, and offering integrated and seamless information and payment solutions.

One area that is less of a grand challenge – and, in relative terms, less of a big ticket item – is the matter of providing quite short connections in the network that have a disproportionate significance in both addressing end-to-end journey requirements, and complementing the accessibility needs of large activity sites and potential new development opportunities.

In this field, some recent innovative systems are showing exciting potential to tackle problems in new ways – and even more economically and rapidly than hitherto. There is a major opportunity for the UK businesses behind these schemes.

A group of emerging, new generation short transport concepts are offering smart, cost-effective and customer-attractive solutions to provide short transport connections that improve accessibility and connectivity in urban areas, and at complex sites such as airports, major interchanges and sporting, leisure and retail developments.

The opening of schemes such as the ULTra PRT at Heathrow last year, and the cross-Thames cable car last month, illustrate that this technology is now proven and offers new options in transport planning and urban development. These schemes are increasingly harnessing smart energy systems and automation too, including on demand activation and self-powered technologies, to make them exceptionally cost effective and efficient.

The fruits of both individual inventors and large companies looking for the next technology, they have featured smaller, alternatively powered vehicles capable of running on both existing and new track for journey lengths of 2kms or so.

The quest has been to find economical and attractive links to the main rail networks that can add new connections or replace conventional branch line services. Parry People Movers, used now on the Stourbridge branch line, are powered by a flywheel, spun up by a small LPG engine. The ULTra personal travel pods, which have been in service at London’s Heathrow Airport since 2011 run on a 1.2 mile line. This is longer than the Stourbridge branch, so there is no reason why this technology could not actually be used on a converted branch line too – and maybe one run on demand?

The new cable car across the Thames in East London has, meanwhile, showcased an impressive way of providing a new five-minute 1km link in the capital’s transport network from the Greenwich Peninsula to Docklands. Supplied by Doppelmayr, it was built by Mace working with Watson Steel, URS Scott Wilson,  Buro Happold, and architects Aedas and Wilkinson Eyre. The cars can transport up to 2,500 people an hour 90 metres in the air. Known as the Emirates Air Line, in recognition of its sponsor in a ten-year deal worth £36m, the estimated total cost of the scheme was just £60m, with additional funding coming from third party contributions and fare revenue. It was built in under a year and is the first such system to play a key role in a European urban public transport network.

The potential has been quickly spotted by a new group, UK Cable Car Advisers, who aim to combine legal, property and engineering expertise for urban cable car schemes, and help change the perception that cable cars are only suitable for mountain resorts. They are promoting cable car systems as an additional form of urban transport in the UK with significant advantages over more traditional modes.

The group brings together lawyers Bircham Dyson Bell, property experts Ardent, and Neil Thompson, chief engineer on the London Eye and most recently overall technical adviser to London cable car scheme.

Thompson says that the benefits of cable cars are significant – “they can create access for inaccessible destinations and provide a low-cost, energy-efficient and environmentally sound solution which can be delivered more quickly than other fixed modes of urban transport,” he says.

“They use proven technology which has much lower capital and operating costs compared to bridges or tunnels, and they can become iconic attractions in their own right.”

Cable Car Advisers will be speaking at an expert seminar next month, led by US guru Larry Fabian, which will provide a unique briefing on this group of personalised, short-distance and low investment solutions, including Personal Rapid Transit and podcar systems, aerial cable links, extended escalators, travelators and horizontal lifts. For more details about the seminar please visit smart-links.org