Ropeways in South America

54 INTERVIEW
Ropeways in South America
Francisco Sotomayor, organizer of Messe Expo Andes and the only representative
of South America on the OITAF Management Committee, talks about developments in the
ropeway industry on the South American continent.
a n d e s
What is the current state of the
ropeway market in South
­America?
I would divide the South American
market into four areas or categories: tourist installations, mountain and ski area ropeways, material-handling installations and ropeways for urban public transport.
Francisco
Sotomayor
Tourist ropeways
In its various countries, South
America has a total of almost sixty
ropeways built as urban tourism
amenities, leisure facilities or
transport systems serving noted
viewpoints. Most of them are either
reversibles, gondolas or funiculars.
The first big tourist ropeways on
the South American continent
were early examples of passenger
ropeway engineering, including
the aerial tram serving Sugar Loaf
Mountain in Rio de Janeiro (1912),
the Merida Cable Car in Venezuela
(1957, with a line length of 12.5 km
and a top station at 4765 m above
sea-level, making it the secondlongest and second-highest ropeway in the world), or the funicular
in Santiago de Chile’s Parque Metropolitano (1925, now the subject
of a protection order). Of course, I
can’t list all the ropeways built in
South America, but I’d like to mention a few to show that there are
ropeways in practically every
country of the continent: the installation in Quito (Ecuador, 2005),
the Warairarepano Cable car in Caracas (Venezuela, 1955), the chairlift in Tucumán (Argentina, 1971),
the inclined elevators in Valparaíso (Chile, 1883), the chairlift in Piriápolis (Uruguay), the ropeway in
Unipraias Park (Balneário Camboriú, Brazil), the Cochabamba Cable
Car (Bolivia) and so on. Various
new aerial trams, funiculars and
other installations serve as South
American reference projects for
numerous authorities and have attracted the attention of the world’s
ropeway manufacturers.
Mountain and ski area ropeways
In view of the continent’s geography and climate, only two South
American countries, namely Argentina and Chile, have ropeway
installations as part of their winter
tourism offering. Each has about
forty mountain sport locations (ski
areas, snow parks, etc.) with approx. 300 lifts and cable cars. They
account for some three million
skier days and generate annual
sales worth about 100 million euros. In addition to the existing ski
areas, the region has enormous potential for further development in
the ropeway industry; the snowcovered mountain chains of Chile
and Argentina have a total length
of about 3,000 km, and so far only
few people in the region have taken up snow and mountain sports as
a hobby.
Material-handling ropeways
South America used to have large
numbers of big material-handling
ropeways such as the salt-carrying
ropeway in Salinas (Brazil, 1919)
and the famous ropeway linking
Santiago with the mining area of
Disputada de las Condes (Chile),
but with the advent of high-capacity conveyor belts and huge mining
trucks capable of carrying up to
400 tons of material in one trip,
ropeways lost a lot of ground and
the leading role they had enjoyed
for so long in what is a key industry
on the South American continent.
Ropeway design engineers were
able to respond to the changing
market situation, however, as
demonstrated by Poma with the
installations built in the mining areas of Anglo Gold Ashanti (Brazil)
and Doe Run La Oroya (Peru), and
the innovative solutions developed
by Doppelmayr including the Rope
Con conveyor system, which can
handle up to 10,000 tons an hour.
Urban ropeways
For some years now, South America has been playing an increasingly
important role in the ropeway industry due in particular to developments in the field of ropeways
for urban passenger transportation
systems, where Colombia, Venezuela and Brazil have played pioneering roles. In the last ten years,
more than 250 million euros has
been invested in major urban
transport projects in South America. Today these ropeways carry an
annual total of more than 50 million passengers. That also has significant socioeconomic effects, as
most of these installations occupy
socially disadvantaged locations
where access was previously difficult. That has promoted social inclusion of the poorer classes and
substantially reduced the crime
rate in areas which were long considered dangerous.
By way of example, let’s look at the
Colombian city of Medellín, for
which a study drew the following
conclusions: In the areas served by
the urban ropeway, it is estimated
that the crime rate has fallen by no
less than 70 %, while annual cost
savings are put at almost 3.4 billion euros. Above all, residents
now enjoy a standard of urban mobility that offers immense time
savings. Complexo do Alemão in
Rio de Janeiro is another good example: Following construction of a
gondola lift system, 490 new busi-
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56 interview
nesses were established in the
neighborhood, and the favelas
suddenly found themselves a tourist attraction, with more than 1.5
million tourists using the ropeway
every year. That is about half the
total rideage, which is unusual, all
the more so as Alemão is a poor
area and one that tourists normally
used to avoid.
What is the potential of the
ropeway industry in South
America?
Tourist ropeways In the field of tourism, I would say
the potential is enormous – not
only in South America but in the
whole world. As I have already
said, some ropeways have become
veritable hallmarks of the cities,
national parks and so on in which
they stand and have a big impact
on tourism in those areas. For that
reason, plans are being drawn up in
many places to build new installations or refurbish old ones. The refurbishment projects include the
Parque Metropolitano Cable Car in
Santiago (Chile, out of service
since 2009, currently undergoing
refurbishment) and the Merida Cable Car in Venezuela. Major new
ropeways are currently the subject
of discussion for Potosí, Cerro San
Cristóbal in Lima, and Choquequirao, Kuélap, etc.
Mountain and ski area ropeways
Foreign visitors today are a key
factor for ski area development in
Chile and Argentina. Nor should
we forget the growing interest in
winter sports being gradually
shown by South America’s 357
million inhabitants. In the high
season, Brazilian families account
for up to 60% of the market in
mountain resorts like Valle Nevado (Chile) and Catedral Alta Patagonia (Argentina). It should also
be remembered that the skiing
season in South America begins
when the ski areas in the traditional winter sports countries of
Europe and North America are
closed. As a result, some South
American ski areas have become
training centers for national
squads, who come to train when it
is summer in the northern hemisphere. It is nevertheless my belief that, in the years ahead, we
should launch advertising campaigns and make a political effort
to attract more visitors from Chile
and Argentina. We must also further develop our offering for summer tourism in the mountain regions. There is growing demand
for such facilities, and thanks to
the summer visitors our mountain
sport resorts are now able to generate revenues practically all year
round.
Urban ropeways The recently built ropeways discussed above are serving as models
for many other regions of South
America, and the authorities in
many cities now want to employ
ropeways to tackle congestion and
reduce the volume of traffic on the
roads. The new projects, in which
more than 200 million euros will be
invested in the years ahead, will be
a big stimulus to the ropeway industry.
In the Bolivian city of La Paz, for
example, key steps have been taken
in the last few months, and work
has now begun on the construction
of the world’s biggest urban public
transport ropeway network.
In other cities, too, such as Medellín
(Colombia), Manizales (Colombia)
and Caracas (Venezuela), the public
transport ropeway systems are also
being further developed. In Rio de
Janeiro, work has already started on
the construction of several ropeways to link deprived areas of the
city with downtown Rio.
Many other South American cities,
including Santiago (Chile) and Lima (Peru), are thinking of adding
ropeways to their public transport
systems, and a number of concrete
projects are now in the planning or
development stage.
PHoto: doppelmaYr
“San Agustín”
in Caracas/
Venezuela
Material-handling ropeways
I think ropeways are the perfect solution for mining, especially in
countries like Chile, with more
than 60 % of the big mines located
in difficult terrain at more than
3000 m above sea-level, where access and transportation are often a
problem. Unfortunately too little
thought, it seems to me, has been
given in South America to the kind
of ropeway solutions that could be
developed. Presumably it is because the big ropeway manufacturers are so far away and the suppliers of alternative equipment and
systems are so strong on the
ground that South American industrialists give little thought – or
at least less thought than their European and Asian counterparts –
to ropeways as an effective transport solution for their needs.
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PHoto: POMA
interview 57
OITAF is the only organization
in the world that serves all the
actors in the ropeway industry.
In 2012 you became the first
South American member of OITAF’s Management Committee.
What did the appointment mean
to you?
First of all, it was a great honor for
me and a pleasant surprise to be
invited in 2012 to become a member of the Management Committee
of the world’s leading ropeway industry organization. It was a great
opportunity for me to get to know
top representatives of the authorities and experts from an industry
in which much still needs to be
done in South America.
As most of the working sessions
are held in Europe, however, I have
not been able to play as active a
part as I would like, but it has been
very instructive and an enriching
experience to attend the annual
meetings and to study at home the
documents produced by OITAF’s
various work committees over the
years.
I hope I can also make a contribution to the organization’s work and
I want to share my knowledge with
the various industry actors in
South America. Maybe that will
help to make OITAF stronger on
our continent, too, one day. I also
believe it is very important that
our experiences be shared with the
other members of the Management
Committee. After all, the South
American ropeway industry is incredibly diverse and also different
from what you have in Europe.
That makes it difficult to look at
things and form an immediate
judgment about whether recommendations formulated by OITAF
or other international regulations
can actually be implemented in
South America. On our continent
there are no industry codes and no
ropeway authorities, either, in
those countries where ropeway installations are operated. I think we
have to develop step by step and
try to bring together the various
actors in the ropeway industry. To
some extent that is also the goal I
have set myself with Expo Andes,
which is held every two years in
Santiago de Chile.
Let me come back to the subject of
urban ropeways for public transport, a field in which ropeways
have been playing a very impor-
tant role for a number of years
now. Many of these installations
are ultramodern; they are in operation between 5000 and 7000
hours a year and carry up to 1 million passengers a month. That
contrasts with the older lift installations in ski areas, which only
run about 1000 hours a year. That
alone shows that it would not be
meaningful to apply the same criteria in terms of operation and
maintenance to such different
systems. That is why the main European ropeway industry actors
and authorities are currently concentrating on the boom in urban
ropeways and are working to meet
the requirements in that field,
which are not necessarily the
same as for mountain and ski area
ropeways.
“Moro de Alemão”
in Río de Janeiro/
Brazil
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