The SK is a

people mover A people mover or automated people mover (APM) is a type of small scale automated guideway transit system. The term is generally used only to describe systems serving relatively small areas such as airports, downtown districts or theme parks. ...

built by the company Soulé from Bagnères-de-Bigorre. The acronym SK comes from the initials of the production company (Soulé) and of the designer (Kermadec). The system consists of small cabins mounted on rails which are pulled by a cable at a constant speed. This idea is directly derived from the

gondola lift A gondola lift is a means of cable transport and type of aerial lift which is supported and propelled by cables from above. It consists of a loop of steel wire rope that is strung between two stations, sometimes over intermediate supp ...

s which Soulé produces for many

ski resort A ski resort is a resort developed for skiing, snowboarding, and other winter sports. In Europe, most ski resorts are towns or villages in or adjacent to a ski area – a mountainous area with pistes (ski trails) and a ski lift system. In Nort ...

s. At stations, the cabin drops the cable and can stop. This technique only works on short lines; its inability to work on long or curved lines with many stops is due to risk of losing the cable and lack of stability at normal speed. Deployed systems include the following: * The system operated at the parking lot of the exhibition grounds of Villepinte in 1986 *An SK system operated for a period of six months at

Expo 86 The 1986 World Exposition on Transportation and Communication, or simply Expo 86, was a World's Fair held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada from May 2 until October 13, 1986. The fair, the theme of which was "Transportation and Communicatio ...

*In 1989, an SK system operated at an exposition in

Yokohama is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of To ...

, Japan * An SK line was completed in February 1993 in

Noisy-le-Grand Noisy-le-Grand () is a commune in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. The commune of Noisy-le-Grand is part of the sector of Porte de Paris, one of the four sectors of the "new town" of Marne-la-Vallée ...

but the office park it was supposed to serve was never built. The line continued to be maintained in an operational state until funding was cut in October 1999. It was subsequently abandoned, and one of the station buildings was demolished in 2018. * Two SK 6000 lines were built at

Charles de Gaulle Airport Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport (french: Aéroport de Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle, ), also known as Roissy Airport or simply Paris CDG, is the principal airport serving the French capital, Paris ( and its metropolitan area), and the largest intern ...

. The first was supposed to open on 1 May 1996, but the length of the line (3,500 m) created many technical problems making it impossible to open for public service. Line 2 should have opened in 1997, but it was never opened either. The project had a cost of 148 million euros before being abandoned. It was replaced by

CDGVAL CDGVAL is a free shuttle rail service at Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG), using the VAL (English: ''automatic light vehicle)'' driverless, rubber-tyred people mover technology. The first line, which connects the three airport terminals, ...

. *The

Bund Sightseeing Tunnel The Bund Sightseeing Tunnel is a tunnel connecting the Shanghai Bund and Pudong in Shanghai, China. Overview The line has a total length of 646.7 meters, with two stations and 14 cars (as of 2010). Construction started in 1998 and trial operatio ...

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

(opened 2001) uses the SK 6000.

References

External links

*
A few SK images
People movers by manufacturer People mover systems in France Personal rapid transit {{metro-stub