Toulouse: should we be afraid of cable car breakdowns?
Three breakdowns in less than a month of operation, Téléo, Toulouse’s urban cable car, is it a victim of its success… in terms of attendance? Simple peripheral settings, we believe at Tisséo.
This Wednesday, June 8, Téléo slept in late. So to speak, the brand new Toulouse urban cable car went into service shortly before 8 a.m., instead of 5:15 a.m., following a new breakdown. The third since the commissioning of the “longest cable car in France” during the weekend of May 14 and 15, a little over three weeks ago.
However, these incidents did not block passengers in the air, in the empty cabins during these three untimely stops. Are they a bad omen? Téléo, which has just passed the milestone of 200,000 trips in less than a month, is it a victim of its own success?
Youth defects
“Not at all”, replies Jean-Michel Lattes. “These are simple technical adjustments, the incidents mentioned are peripherals to the main system, robust and simple, but which undoubtedly require certain foreseeable adjustments”, corrects the double president of Tisséo Collectivités, the transport organizing authority of the the Toulouse conurbation, and Tisséo Ingénierie, contracting authority for the cable car integrated by Poma, leader in teleports.
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Toulouse: nearly 3 hours of breakdown for the new cable car this Wednesday morning
The first of the stops has not been a victim of Téléo since its commissioning took place on the Thursday following the inauguration. “Updating the operating software, which is done at night, caused a computer bug, explains Jean-Michel Lattes, the empty cabins were running normally but contact with the cabins was not made”. Altiservice, the company that operates Téléo, like several cable cars in the stations of the Pyrenees in particular, corrected the bug before the start of service, shifted by almost three hours.
The second incident is linked to a storm alert which led to the scheduled shutdown, less than an hour, at the end of the afternoon. “The weather forecast predicts storms to the nearest quarter of an hour, the cable car is stopped preventively as happens in the mountains in the event of a strong storm announced”, specifies Jean-Michel Lattes.
The third stop, yesterday morning, is linked to a failure to respect the safety distance between the cabins, “for a few centimeters” according to the boss of Tisséo. Distance definitely restored in time for rush hour.
Nothing to do with Brest
Nothing to do with the difficulties of the Brest urban cable car. France’s first urban cable transport commissioned in 2016 suffered from recurring problems, breakdowns, interruption of service for ten months, long stoppages (several weeks) for maintenance and even a cabin falling during the works. It is of a completely different design from that of Toulouse, and criticized for a character close to the prototype.
For Tisséo, which reports an availability rate of 97.77% from May 14 to 31, Téléo would rather be the victim of youthful incidents requiring some “fine adjustments”. The safety of the Toulouse cable car has been very careful, according to the public urban transport establishment, particularly in terms of preventing attacks (2.8 million euros have been added to the initial budget in anti-intrusion equipment for the stations and surveillance cameras at the foot of the pylons).
The milestone of 200,000 trips passed
“Since commissioning on May 14, on an overrun of 200,000 trips,” said Jean-Michel Lattes on June 8 before the union council of Tisséo Collectivités, the transport authority for the Toulouse conurbation.
The free weekend of May 14 and 15 saw 50,000 people using Teleo (20,000 on Saturdays and 30,000 on Sundays), sometimes with an hour’s queue, and on June 6 we reached 140,000 validations (excluding inauguration), added the president of Tisséo Collectivités.
“The attendance record is 9,000 people on Ascension Friday, which confirms the tourist dimension of this innovative mode of transport”, according to Jean-Michel Lattes. The average attendance is between 7000 and 7500 people/day. Figures that already correspond to Tisséo’s starting discounters.