Emirates Air Line (cable car)

Emirates Air Line
Opening:	June 28, 2012
Operator:	Transport for London
Route length:	1100 meters
Passengers:	1,419,137 (2016)

Emirates Air Line, test operation in May 2012

Emirates Air Line cabins

Emirates Greenwich Peninsula Station

Station Emirates Royal Docks

Station Emirates Royal Docks

The Emirates Air Line is a cable car that connects the districts of Greenwich and Docklands in the eastern part of London and crosses the Thames between the Greenwich Peninsula and Royal Docks stops . It opened on June 28, 2012 as the first urban cable car in the UK ahead of the Summer Olympics . The facility is named after its sponsor, the Emirates airline .

Stations

Greenwich Peninsula

Location 51 ° 29 ′ 58.9 ″  N , 0 ° 0 ′ 30 ″  E

The southwestern station (also known as Emirates Greenwich Peninsula ) is near The O₂ ( Millennium Dome until 2005 ), where the gymnastics competitions and basketball finals took place at the 2012 Olympic Games . The North Greenwich station of the Jubilee Line of the London Underground is nearby, as is the North Greenwich Pier of the ferry lines of the London River Service .

Royal Docks

Location: 51 ° 30 ′ 28 ″  N , 0 ° 1 ′ 5.2 ″  E

The northeastern end point of the route (also Emirates Royal Docks ) is on the north side of the Royal Victoria Dock . Nearby is the ExCeL Exhibition Center , which was the site of the Olympic martial arts competitions and weightlifting. There is a transition option to the Docklands Light Railway at Royal Victoria (DLR) station .

Technical specifications

• Design: detachable single-cable gondola, left-hand drive (manufacturer: Doppelmayr / Garaventa , Wolfurt / Goldau)
• Gondolas: 34 pieces for ten people each and two bicycles each, suitable for wheelchairs (manufacturer CWA Constructions SA , Olten , type Omega 4, 10 LWI)
• Distance between stations: about 1000 meters
• Inclined cable route / track length: 1103 m
• Vertical height: 77.3 m
• Clearance height: approx. 50 m above the water level of the Thames
• Hauling rope: 50 mm diameter, type Stabilo 8 × 36 Warrington Seale compacted (manufacturer: Fatzer AG Drahtseilwerk, Romanshorn)
• Transport capacity: 2500 people per hour and direction at a maximum speed of 6.0 m / s (= 21.6 km / h)
• Driving time: five to thirteen minutes (one way), depending on the time of day-dependent driving speed (see section Operation ).
• Cable car supports : three pieces (two in Docklands, one in the Thames on the south bank)

Costs and financing

The construction costs for the project came to around ₤ 60 million (around € 76 million at the time of opening) instead of the originally estimated £ 25 million , of which ₤ 36 million (around € 46 million) was borne by the sponsor Emirates . The general contractor for the construction was the British construction company Mace , the cable car technical part came from the Austrian cable car manufacturer Doppelmayr .

Sponsorship

The sponsorship of the airline Emirates entitles it to include the logo of the cable car line with the sponsor name train Emirates in the official route network map of the TfL beyond the ten-year naming right on the line and the stations .

This is the first time that London transport facilities have officially been named an airline. Emirates is the national airline of Dubai, an emirate / part of the United Arab Emirates.

business

The cable car is operated under the direction of Transport for London (TfL). In the first two and a half years of operation there were 354 business interruptions lasting from a few minutes to nine hours. These added up to a total of 520 operating hours or the equivalent of 37 operating days. Too strong wind was the reason in 249 cases.

Operating times

The service starts working days at 7 a.m., Saturdays at 8 a.m. and Sundays at 9 a.m. The normal closing time is at 9 p.m. in summer (April to September) and at 8 p.m. in winter. For certain events - such as during the Olympic and Paralympic Games - operation is scheduled until midnight. Outside of the rush hour, the speed of the train is reduced from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and the travel time for a one-way trip is doubled from five to ten minutes (“extended journey time”) , provided that the volume of traffic permits. After 7 p.m. the speed is further reduced to twelve to thirteen minutes (“night time experience”) .

Fares

The adult fare for a single trip is £ 4.50. Children aged five to fifteen pay £ 2.30. Children up to the age of five travel free of charge. This price doubles with a 360 round trip , a round trip without a break in the journey with a station pass. For holders of an Oyster card or Travelcard , the single single journeys are reduced to £ 3.50 (adults) or £ 1.70 (children). A block of ten single journeys costs £ 17 for adults; there is also a similar discount model for regular rail users with an Oyster card.

criticism

Holders of a Travelcard , a zone subscription with a period of validity of between one day and one year for unrestricted use of London's public transport, only receive the Oystercard / Travelcard discount on the Air Line , but have to pay the cable car fare itself in addition to the network tariff already paid pay, although part of the immense construction costs of the cable car from the budget of the TfL and thus from tax revenues. It is uncertain whether the facility will become an integral part of London's local public transport system in the long term, especially as an attractive means of transport for commuters, under these tariff conditions and also because of its questionable importance for transport.

Web links

Commons : Emirates Air Line (cable car)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Emirates Air Line - website of the operator (English)
• BBC London video report of the May 2012 test drives

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Planning Application Summary. London-Newham website with the planning summary dated October 29, 2010, accessed February 27, 2016
2. ↑ Emirates Air Line performance data. ( Memento of the original from May 12, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Transport for London website, accessed April 8, 2017 
3. ^ First "London Cable Car" opened. In: ISR - Internationale Seilbahnrundschau , accessed on July 16, 2012
4. ↑ Urban References. Doppelmayr / Garaventa brochure 2015, page 10, accessed on March 9, 2016
5. ↑ report. In: BBC News London , September 23, 2011, accessed May 21, 2011.
6. ↑ report. In BBC News London , October 9th 2011, retrieved (English) 21 May 2011
7. ^ First "London Cable Car". In: isr.at
8. ↑ Mayor secures Emirates Airline as private sponsor for pioneering new Thames crossing - section Notes to Editors. In: TfL.gov.uk , October 7, 2011, accessed on July 16, 2012 (English)
9. ↑ Standard Tube Map. In: TfL.gov.uk , accessed on July 16, 2012 (PDF)
10. ^ Advertising and the Underground - The Tube goes commercial. In: The Economist , May 5, 2012, accessed July 16, 2012
11. ↑ Emirates Air Line cable car closed 354 times in just two-and-a-half years, figures reveal. In: The Evening Standard , March 19, 2015, accessed February 6, 2016.
12. ↑ Information about the operating times. In: tfl.gov.uk , accessed on July 15, 2012 (PDF; English)
13. ↑ Information about travel times. In: tfl.gov.uk , accessed on April 8, 2017 (PDF; English)
14. ^ Transport for London: Emirates Air Line. In: tfl.gov.uk , accessed on March 21, 2016 (English)
15. ^ Cable Car prices out Commuters. ( Memento of the original from October 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: The Wharf , June 19, 2012 (English). 
16. ↑ Most expensive cable car in the world with a questionable traffic significance. In: Zukunft.mobilität.net , accessed on July 15, 2012

Upstream Tunnel of the Jubilee Line Blackwall Tunnel

River crossings of the Thames

downstream Thames Barrier

 Map with all coordinates: OSM | WikiMap