Long announced for the end of 2021, the commissioning of the cable car dependent on the Oncopole, Rangueil and Paul-Sabatier University will only take place in the first quarter of 2022. In question, a delay in buildings, the global shortage of electronic elements and administrative authorizations to be obtained. La Dépêche looks back on the genesis of a project that we have been talking about since 2008.
September 21, 2021, AZF is wiped off the map. 2004, Philippe Douste-Blazy, then mayor of Toulouse, launched the idea of the Oncopole on the site of the former Toulouse chemical complex. In 2008, Douste launched the idea of an urban cable car to link the Oncopole, Rangueil hospital and Paul-Sabatier University and passed the baton to Pierre Cohen, the new socialist mayor of the Pink City. At the time, the idea was not really taken seriously, even by some Tisséo technicians. This urban cable car is a bit of a gimmick. At the same time, we are also talking about shuttles on the canals and the Garonne or compressed air car factory in Toulouse! But studies were launched on the cable car, during the tenure of Pierre Cohen, and the project took shape under the name of Aerotram.
From Aerotram to Téléo
When Jean-Luc Moudenc arrived at the Capitole in 2014, he took up the idea again, but his team judged the architecture of the three stations to be sumptuous, the cost of which he wanted to reduce. And his Mr. Mobilités, Jean-Michel Lattes, wishes to insert the cable car, soon called Téléo, in a “southern belt”, dependent by bus Colomiers, Tournefeuille, Basso Cambo and the Oncopole, on the one hand, UPS, Montaudran or even Saint -Orens, on the other hand. “The Tisséo transport network is in a star from the center of Toulouse, the southern belt will be the first circular transport axis directly dependent on the periphery, with the cable car as the central link”, explains today the president of Tisséo Colllectivités and Tisséo Engineering.
The so-called own work begins in early 2019 with a consortium led by Poma, the French leader in teleported vehicles and Bouygues-TP, chosen through a call for tenders. The 3S technology, with three cables, a towing cable and two cables carrying the cabins, safer and quieter, was chosen. With the advantage of having only five very high pylons (the highest culminates at 80m above the ground). We are talking about a commissioning in the summer of 2021, then at the start of the same year, then at the end of 2021, for the “longest urban cable car in France” (3 km long), as it is called. at will Jean-Michel Lattes.
Why a new delay
This September 29, during a press visit to the site, Jean-Michel Lattes, for Tisséo, and Francis Charamel, director of operations at Poma, cautious, rather spoke of “commissioning in the first quarter of 2022”. Why this new delay, after a first ignition delay linked to the refusal of the staff and parents of students at Bellevue high school to be flown over by the cabins. A refusal which resulted in the relocation of the terminus station near the multimodal UPS station and an additional cost of the project: from € 63 million, the bill (design and investment) has now risen to 82 million . Not to mention the 2 million euros per year for 20 years provided, by contract, for the maintenance carried out by the constrictor Poma and Altiservice, a company well known in particular in Pyrenean ski resorts.
Cabins designed by Pininfarina, the Ferrari designer.
To explain the new delay, Francis Charamel evokes “the supply disruptions linked to the global crisis and the Covid, in particular electronic equipment (cameras inside the cabins designed by Pininfarina, the designer of Ferrari, and various elements, Editor’s note) as well as a delay on the centralized management building “, on the UPS site, from where the cable car is controlled and where the two electric motors and the various systems running Téléo are located. Jean-Michel Lattes also evokes the length and complexity of the tests and administrative authorizations to be obtained for an urban cable car, of a new type. “We did not want to rush; Brest, where the cable car is also of an experimental design, has to force the schedule and that was catastrophic”.
The schedule of tests and authorizations
“A first test phase has been taking place since July on the machine, the engine, the cable clamps of the cabins, all the safety devices, which will lead to an inspection by a specialized State service, the STRMTG (service technique of ski lifts and guided transport) “, explains Vincent Conan. The Teleo project manager of Tisséo pursuit: “once this sesame has been obtained, the blank run will take place, conducted without passengers by Tisséo for a month, probably at the beginning of 2022, with barrels full of water in place of the passengers A new state control will follow, for an additional authorization, and only then can the prefect decide on the date of commissioning.
Anti vertigo film, camera and telephone inside.
“Téléo should transport 7000 to 8000 travelers per day, from 5.15 am to midnight, with a frequency of one cabin every minute and a half”, specifies Jean-Michel Lattes, “the maximum capacity is 3000 passengers per hour”. “This with an electricity consumption equivalent to a third of the production of the Oncopole solar farm”, adds Francis Charamel, who praises his zero-emission and completely carbon-free cable car.
With a maximum speed of 25 km / h, it will only take ten minutes to connect Oncopole to UPS, instead of three quarters of an hour currently by bus or car. In spring 2022. With a breathtaking view of the Pink City and the Garonne from the slopes of Pech David. It might be worth the wait a bit.