JEDDAH, 8 August — The Middle East’s biggest cable car system, inaugurated by Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, on Monday in Taif, was being used by holiday-makers yesterday.
The 4.5-km system, one of the longest in the world without pillars, has been built at a cost of SR150 million ($40 million) in just eight months by the Taif Investment and Tourism Company and an Austrian specialist company.
According to Austrian Consul Walter Friedl, “Doppelmayr Seilbahnen GmbH of Wolfurt, the Austrian company which specializes in such systems, executed the first phase of the project after intense construction work preceded by exploration and feasibility studies.”
“The Taif project is the company’s sixth cable car system in the Kingdom. The first five, all built by the Austrian company, are in the Asir region. The first project became operational 10 years ago at Habalah (also known as the hanging village),” Friedl told Arab News yesterday.
The consul added that the company had built 8,280 cable transport systems throughout the world, including 1,688 in Japan, 1,164 in Switzerland, 617 in Germany, 421 in Italy, 402 in the US, 358 in Sweden, 279 in Canada, and 228 in Norway. Australia, France, China, Pakistan and India are also among the nearly 70 countries where it has undertaken projects.
Doppelmayr was founded in 1892. Today, the group has production facilities and sales and service locations in over 45 countries. The group comprises seven divisions, each specializing in ropeway systems, rope-hauled local passenger transportation systems, passenger and goods elevators and escalators, automatic high-bay warehouse systems, mechanical parking systems, automated ropeway and lift systems for local applications, and concepts for the year-round mountain experience.
“We’re very pleased to see an Austrian company being preferred for executing such specialized projects which need high standards of safety and technology,” Friedl said.
“In fact, Doppelmayr leads the way in ropeway technology thanks to a combination of ongoing innovation, the highest standards of workmanship, and an absolute commitment to safety. It symbolizes high-performance transportation systems for winter and summer tourism, and modern solutions for passenger transportation in the urban environment,” he added.
