Convinced by POMA's know-how and expertise, the Dominican Republic has once again called upon the Isère-based manufacturer for a third aerial tramway. After working in the capital Santo Domingo, POMA will be supporting the urban development of the country's second-largest city, Santiago de los Caballeros. The project, which began in autumn 2021, is the third to be built in the Dominican Republic in the space of six years, making ropeway transportation the symbol of innovative, virtuous mobility for the country's urban population. Accessible to all, this 12-seater gondola lift runs for nearly four kilometres. It is at the heart of a project supported by the Dominican government: Santiago's SIT (Integrated Transport System), a multimodal scheme for soft and sustainable mobility. In addition to this new ropeway transportation line, it will also include a monorail and will provide ample room for the use of bicycles and electric buses.

The gondola lift is equipped with the latest-generation DirectDrive® motor to offer reliable, fast and eco-friendly transport for 4,000 people per hour at a speed of 7m/s. Its 12-seater cabins feature the emblematic red colour of the city. They can fly over densely populated areas that are home to 130,000 people, and are saturated during rush hour, to connect the four stations in just 10 minutes. With this line, the authorities hope to give a new economic and social impetus to the area.

Since 2018, the Dominican Republic, and more specifically the city of Santo Domingo, has chosen to turn to ropeway transportation as an innovative, low-impact solution to the challenges of urban mobility. With its congested urban space, the country is seeking to integrate sustainable transport alternatives that will reduce daily commuting times. This solution's ability to integrate into the surrounding environment also means that it can reach remote neighbourhoods with little impact on the environment.

As well as providing fast and efficient connections, aerial tramways reduce road congestion and greenhouse gas emissions and provide easier access to areas that would otherwise be difficult to reach. Following the opening of the first 5-km, 100% horizontal urban gondola lift in the north-east of Santo Domingo and a second 4.2-km line featuring the fastest monocable system in the world in the north-west of the capital to reach the city centre even more quickly, now the city of Santiago de los Caballeros has chosen ropeway transportation.

As well as carrying out these three projects, POMA is also responsible for the long-term maintenance and availability of these lines. An Operations and Maintenance contract gives the Dominican government the guarantee that the service will run smoothly, allowing users to travel on these lines with complete peace of mind. A local POMA team, with the help of an operating partner, is mobilised on a daily basis to ensure the reliability of the ropeway systems.

The oldest city in the modern world continues its strategy of developing its public transport network and reinforcing its proposals of low-impact transport solutions, with a 4,20km-long line interconnected with the metro, running at a speed of 7m/s and a flow rate of 4,500 per hour in each direction.

Line 2 of the “Teleferico Santo Domingo” is 4.20 km long, with 4 stations connecting more than 23 districts in the West of the capital. A single ticket to travel across the entire network of the capital will make it possible to take one of the 157 cabins that criss-cross the Dominican sky, and to connect the heart of the capital in the most accessible, fast, reliable and comfortable way possible with this exclusive transport, forgetting car or bus journeys of more than an hour on the traffic-heavy road network.

POMA, a pioneer and world leader in cable transport, has once again offered its savoir-faire and expertise in order to design and build an innovative and sustainable mobility solution in the heart of the city. After 2 years of work, the first passengers have taken to the skies on the fastest urban monocable system in the world !

In 2018 Santo Domingo's inhabitants were pioneers in installing the first urban cable car in the Caribbean. The construction of this second ropeway system by POMA, a leader in urban cable transport, further strengthens the international influence of French industrial know-how and the company’s expertise.

POMA is currently working on the construction of a third urban ropeway in Santiago de los Caballeros to support the urban development of the country’s second largest city; the construction began in autumn of 2021. At the heart of the project is low-impact, sustainable mobility accessible to all, including a monorail, bikes, electric buses and a 12-seater gondola lift spanning almost 4km. The Santiago de los Caballeros cable car will be the third POMA line to be built in the Dominican Republic in just 6 years, making ropeway transport the symbol of innovative and ethical mobility for the country’s development.

100% electric, silent and low-carbon, covering a small surface area on the ground, the urban cable car is well-integrated into its surrounding environment, reducing car traffic and the consequent pollution.

With its capacity to overcome obstacles (rivers, steep inclines, railway lines, congested zones…) and its lightweight infrastructure, ropeway transport is a pertinent solution to environmental and mobility issues.

Moreover, the advantage of ropeway transport is that it runs uninterrupted on its own exclusive path, guaranteeing reliability in terms of regularity and journey time.

Thanks to its electric motor, the urban cable car is 30 times less polluting than the car for an equivalent journey. It opens up new ways of getting around, without polluting, in a fast, efficient and pleasant way, offering a unique view of the whole city. In Santo-Domingo, the ropeway is equipped with the latest DirectDrive motor, providing reliable and ecological transport. This POMA technology presents three advantages that are part of a complete eco-responsibility approach: a significant reduction in energy consumption, no oil consumption, and a considerable reduction in noise pollution.

This new cable car line responds to the challenges of urban transport and contributes to economic development and growth. This well-integrated transport system that connects residents to the city will open up large urban areas, providing local residents with easier access to the primary employment-rich zone in the city centre, while avoiding road traffic in the most congested areas of the city. The low-impact, sustainable mobility of cable transport offers a better quality of life for the local population. By connecting the inhabitants directly to employment opportunities and by upgrading public spaces, the authorities intend to give new economic and social impetus to the districts served by the line.

The future of urban transport is a real social and environmental issue and is at the heart of ongoing discussions among communities. The pioneering city of Medellín was the first municipality to use a new urban mobility solution by integrating an overhead ropeway line into its network in 2004. Metrocable’s first line, “Line K”, which is connected to the metro, created a link between the inhabitants and the city centre. This new urban mobility, made possible by the new lines, has reinforced the social cohesion in local areas by connecting sectors that had long been isolated.

After the success of this first gondola lift, Medellín continued to develop the “proyecto de Ciudad” city project by adding 5 other lines to the network: line J (2007), line L (2010), line H (2016), line M (2019) and finally line P (2021).

Open 7 days a week, 19 hours a day, the Metrocable provides the inhabitants of Medellín with a safe, fast and efficient mode of transport between the city centre and its outskirts. The network of cable cars now stretches over 14 kilometres, directly connected to the different lines of the Medellín Metro by multimodal stations. Each year, more than 220 million people use the city's transport system, demonstrating a successful social inclusion model that offers a new quality of life to the city's residents through social connections and increasingly attractive neighbourhoods.

Thanks to this sustainable mobility solution and its proven energy efficiency, air pollution has been cut for the inhabitants of Medellín. This is because the extent of the Metrocable transport system is such that it contributes to the reduction of carbon emissions and improves air quality by offering an alternative to road traffic.

Namur residents will remember the first cable car installed in 1956 that took them to the top of the citadel up until 1997. Namur'snew gondola takes a different route today, rising over the Sambre and linking the city centre from Maurice Servais Square to the upper station on the Citadel's Esplanade, a stone's throw from the Digital Pavilion, a legacy from the Milan World Expo.

The gondola is both a useful link and an environmental plus, offering an alternative traffic route in the Walloon capital.

Designed to blend in with the urban landscape, the gondola's contemporary architecture respects this unique site. The two stations, built from Namur's typical red brick, blend discreetly with the surroundings. The technical parts of the gondola are well camouflaged and the ingenious design of the transparent glass surfaces allows perfect integration with the surrounding buildings. Careful attention has been paid to the installation of the towers. Of the four on the line, only one is obviously visible, the others merging discretely with the Terra Nova trees.

The designers were also careful to minimise the noise levels of the drive station. To reduce energy usage, the Diamond cabins are equipped with solar panels that power interior and exterior LED lighting.

At the beginning of 2019, Hyundai Engineering & Construction awarded leading ropeway transportation company, POMA, the EPCI contract* to provide the 48 capsules for the world's newest and biggest observation wheel “Ain Dubai”.
POMA has been designing and building largescale projects in the Entertainment sector for many years. A project of this scale calls for the highest levels of technological expertise, combined with unparalleled know-how.

Forty-eight outsized and completely original capsules, each able to accommodate up to 40 people, were designed, built and installed in a record time of less than 24 months.

Innovating and designing exactly the right engineering solutions while guaranteeing safety, efficiency and cost-effectiveness, is part of POMA's DNA.

The Group has, in particular, fine-tuned its engineering expertise and its unique technical prowess in the sector through involvement in the delivery of numerous special projects:

• Big observation wheels in London with the London Eye and in Las Vegas with the High Roller
• Other complex projects, in particular the incredible British Airways i360 observation tower in Brighton…
• Regular provision of capsules for smaller observation wheels: Baku, Chicago, Hong Kong…

As well as mastering the technology to successfully complete complex projects, POMA benefits from an agile organization enabling close joint-construction with the customer or managing the Group's multicultural and multi-expert teams and its subcontractors, who, for the “Ain Dubai” project, were coordinated from France but based in seven countries on four different continents.

The design and manufacture of the 48 capsules for “Ain Dubai” was a fast track project, carried out in under two years. This project clearly demonstrates the French Group's ability to export its services, tackle innovative projects and handle tight deadlines.

Confronted by the uncertainty of the health crisis, POMA's teams had to adapt almost continuously to deliver the 48 capsules and limit the impact on the construction site to a minimum.

BOURG-SAINT-MAURICE

The municipality invested in the renovation of its emblematic funicular railway. The “Arcs Express” offers a direct link between Les Arcs and the railway network in just  7 minutes, 7 days a week.

The new trainsets which have a glass roof and which,thanks to the driver’s station moved to the center of the cabin, offers new panoramic spaces at the front and at the rear for an exceptional view of the valley. 100% electric, for an eco-responsible approach, the municipality of Bourg Saint Maurice also wished to pay particular attention to the integration of the funicular into its environment through an elegant design and careful LED lighting.

L'ALPE D'HUEZ

The Alpe Express already connects the centre of the resort to the ski front, and soon phase 2 of the project will connect the village of Huez. The gondola lift is a zero-particle mode of transport that effectively replaces the traffic handled by numerous road shuttle services previously.

The lift is equipped with the DirectDrive® solution and the Cable Position System, an on-board safety device. This unique mode of transport will be the first peri-urban system to operate without an agent in France.

IN GEORGIA 

A valley lift now connects the resort of Gudauri to the town of Kobi. This infrastructure will also make some snowy areas more accessible, areas that sometimes could not even be reached in June!

LES MENUIRES

For a quick journey to the heart of the three valleys, the 2001 POMA gondola lift connecting Saint-Martin-de-Belleville with the Les Ménuires resort was renovated.

First in terms of its electrics, with the latest advances from SEMER, but also more noticeably for users, since the number of gondolas increased from 48 to 64, for more space and added comfort. Capacity has increased to 2,400 p/h.

IN CHINA

The city of Lianshi, in Guizhou province, wanted to move towards mountain tourism. This is how Meihuashan International Ski Resort was born on the heights of the city, around a 4-season offer, combining winter sports, with the creation of a ski resort, and outdoor sports activities.

POMA then accompanied the economic metamorphosis of Lianshi with the construction of two “Meihuashan Lift” gondolas of nearly 10km which now provide the link between the former mining town and the mountain carrying 1,500 passengers per hour. At the intermediate station, visitors can enjoy the panoramic restaurant, located a stone’s throw from the new cable car.

The second section then takes them to the ski area, hotels and small shops in the resort. New leisure activities within reach of the city, in just a few minutes.

COURCHEVEL

Like the Grangettes gondola lift, the new Le Praz gondola lift and its 47 EVO gondolas featuring LED lighting and equipped with solar panels will link the village of Le Praz, where a car park was recently added, and the centre of Courchevel year-round.

During the world championships, which Courchevel will host in 2023, this ropeway will carry the crowds directly to the foot of the snowshoe trail and will be the main gondola lift during the competition.

PEYRAGUDES

A new gondola lift now connects the village of Loudenvielle to the resort of Peyragudes in less than 9 minutes.

The Skyvall gondola lift is the central feature of a new comprehensive range of tourist activities, in which skiing, hiking, mountain biking and wellness can be combined according to the season, with the appropriate equipment. Another major advantage of this valley lift is that it should reduce car traffic and thus significantly decrease CO2 emissions in the valley.