Next year, startup Whoosh will begin construction on a gondola-like ride-hailing network in Queenstown—the first of its kind.
s cities around the world grapple with congestion and seek to lower emissions, one New Zealand-based startup is looking upward for solutions. Next year, Whoosh will begin construction on a gondola-like ride-hailing network in a 370-acre area of tourism hot spot Queenstown—the first of its kind.
Powering the cabins themselves means the guideway can be “really simple, low-cost infrastructure,” Whoosh CEO Chris Allington says. The pods have a mechanism that allows them to switch from cables to suspended rails at speed, meaning that, unlike a gondola, Whoosh can take flexible routes from pickup to drop-off without stopping.
Queenstown is the ideal testing ground “because it’s got horrendous traffic,” but it’s at a manageable scale, Allington says. If the network were expanded across the city, it would have the capacity to take about “20% of vehicles off the road,” he says.Each cabin will be complete with a stabilization system that smooths rides in windy conditions, and smart-glass windows can frost over to stop riders from peering into homes as they glide past, Allington says.
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