Weihai Aerobus

[jpatokal]

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a... cable suspension aerial monorail transportation system?

Whatever it is, it's been coming up for a year now and, in typical Chinese style, they just gave the final go-ahead half a year after construction started. News articles, a few (very preliminary) construction shots and renderings here:

http://www.aerobus.com/weihai2.html
http://www.aerobus.com/weihai-news.html

Weihai is a Chinese port and tourist center on the Gulf of Chihli. The 4.36-kilometer (2.7 mile) route will cross open ocean bay water to Liugong Island, linking this popular tourist destination to the central business district. Weihai, with a population exceeding 2.4 million, is a National Model City and National Environmental City, so the transportation system design and construction had to conform to rigorous specifications. ...

According to the Mayor of Weihai, Mr. Yuanfang Song, “We will have sufficient capacity for increased passenger traffic thanks to the Aerobus system. The round trip from Weihai to Liugong Island and back is approximately 15 minutes. We estimate that there will be capacity to transport over 24,000 people a day. This presents a tremendous opportunity to showcase the new transportation system.”

Aerobus technology utilizes self-powered vehicles running on a dedicated track, which is suspended by a patented cable support system much like the Golden Gate Bridge. Pylons holding the track can be spaced up to ten times farther apart than supports for conventional monorails. Routes can be established at any height above grade in order to pass over buildings, freeways and other obstructions without impeding traffic flow.

Note that, despite the "established technology in operations throughout the world" claim, the system has only been used in a few demo-type installations before, and the newest of those dates back to 1983:

http://www.aerobus.com/installations.html