30-05-2025
- Automotive
- Otago Daily Times
Congestion-busting contenders
Doppelmayr NZ's Garreth Hayman. PHOTO: PHILIP CHANDLER
Two fully electric aerial transportation system providers pitched themselves as solutions to Queenstown's chronic traffic congestion problems at this week's Electrify Queenstown event.
They're Queenstown Cable Car, which could ferry up to 3000 passengers an hour, in both directions, between the CBD and the airport via Queenstown Hill and Frankton.
The other's Whoosh's 'Uber in the sky' which is about to be demo-ed at Remarkables Park.
Doppelmayr NZ CEO Garreth Hayman, who's working with local tech entrepreneur Rod Drury and former Infrastructure Commission chief executive Ross Copland, says "the big difference is we are a mass transit solution versus they are an equivalent of an Uber, if you like, in terms of calling up a taxi".
"They will probably feed into the gondola system, it would make sense for them to do that, and it's just like the [public] bus [network] is feeding into the system well."
However, Whoosh chief executive Dr Chris Allington tells Scene their system has many advantages over a gondola system.
It could disperse its users across a greater number of smaller stations, avoiding likely queues at peak times with the gondola system's fewer, larger stations, he says.
Its modular system allowed it to be expanded as demand required. "You're no longer stuck with straight lines and a limited number of stops."
