AURO Rope syetms
It is hard to imagine operating a cable car, gondola, or chair lift with only one or two attendants, but that reality is not far away. I imagine many of you have read about the AURO Ropeway by Doppelmayr in Switzerland. For more insight and for those who haven’t read about it, the following article from Unofficial Networks is quite interesting and, to some extent, almost mind-blowing.
It is easy to see the labor-saving cost to ski resorts. However, being a lift attendant, liftie, at times, can be tedious, but at least it has human interaction. To the energetic lifty, it can be fun and rewarding. Sitting at a station with multiple computer screens and monitoring the activity on the screens and the control board would be a position that could put some people to sleep. Not a lot of human interaction. Certainly, Doppelmayr and Leitner have thought about this aspect of the position and will have answers addressing the boredom factor.
The AURO Ropeway has some traction in Europe and on metro public transportation systems. However, in North America, which has a business model different from Europe's, the question of the ROI of an AURO Ropeway system arises. Not knowing the incremental cost for the AURO system on a lift, one must wonder how many lifties would need to be replaced by automation and for how many years to recover the investment needed to cover the incremental cost. Currently, I imagine the price of the AURO system is relatively expensive and has requirements beyond just a typical lift replacement.
There are many ifs, but it's great to see ski industry suppliers using technology to help ski resorts solve labor staffing issues and move forward, incorporating visionary thinking via technology. To me, this is just the beginning. I imagine, as I’m sure many of you do as well, when there are sensors on every tower and every component on the lift collecting operational data that will create a repository of information as to the performance of the components as well as the lift, enabling predictive maintenance to be much easier to put in place and increase lift performance.
The future looks bright for lift technology to advance, and ski areas must be ready for the technology change.