Evaluating transport sustainability in metropolitan Athens through a cable car proposal as a partial alternative to the announced metro Line 4.

Abstract

Transport sector bears a significant share of responsibility for today’s society environmental issues. In this context, transport ought to include sustainable design principles in the early stages of development of each project. The present work examines an alternative proposal for Metropolitan Athens urban transport, introducing an innovative solution that has recently emerged, urban cable cars. Through literature study and the review of other cities’ best practices, cable cars’ technical characteristics as well as favourable and limiting factors are analysed. A new cable car line is proposed as a partial alternative to line 4 of the Athens metro, which construction has been announced to begin soon. The area of interest covers Zografou and Kaisariani Municipalities, located just a throw stone away from the center of Athens. Comparison factors include capacity, travel time, accessibility, safety, construction time and cost, operating and maintenance costs, environmental impacts, social acceptance and travel quality. Results indicate that cable cars provide sufficient capacity for the specific area offering many environmental advantages and also better coverage, lower cost (both construction and maintenance), lower energy consumption and better travel quality. On the other hand, Athens metro line 4 is evaluated as over-designed according to the expected ridership. As the latest developments in technology show, cable cars are sustainable means of transport with great potential within the urban fabric, under certain circumstances. The contribution of this work relies on revealing alternative solutions to cities’ transit problems, which in terms of environmental design can be resolved without the need to invest in large-scale projects such as metros.