AWith cities around the world facing congestion and looking to reduce emissions, one New Zealand-based startup is looking to find solutions. Next year, Whoosh will begin building a gondola-like network on 370 hectares of tropical land in Queenstown—a first.
The Whoosh is similar to a ski lift, which descends to be picked up by riders, but it works differently. While transportation gondolas lift by moving an entire route of cables, each Whoosh cabin uses an electric motor to propel itself along a vertical network of cables and rails at an average speed of about 26 mph.
Powering the cabins themselves means the road can be “really simple, low-cost infrastructure,” says Whoosh CEO Chris Allington. The pods have a mechanism that allows them to switch cables to suspended rails at speed, meaning that, unlike a gondola, the Whoosh can take flexible routes from loading to unloading without stopping.
Whoosh says their cars, which are expected to be operational as part of a pilot program in 2027, can help reduce commute times and are twice as efficient as more fuel-efficient electric vehicles. Users will be able to hail a ride on demand using the app or ticketing machines.
Queenstown is a good place to test “because it has terrible traffic,” but it’s manageable, Allington said. If the network were extended across the city, it would have the capacity to take “20 percent of the traffic off the road,” he said.
Read more: How Cities Cope with Traffic to Help Fight Emissions
Each cabin will be complete with a wind-sliding stabilization system, and windows with smart glass can be tinted to prevent passengers from peering into the cabins as they glide past, Allington said. While providers will ultimately set the cost for riders, Allington says he expects it to be more expensive than mass transit but cheaper than Uber.
Allington says cabs are more energy efficient than other vehicles because, by using a dedicated lane, they avoid electricity-wasting actions like braking or idling in traffic. Whoosh says it uses about one-sixth the energy of a bus or US rail system. A one-hour walk uses “about the same amount of energy as a 10-minute shower,” Allington says. And the infrastructure the pods run through has about a fifth of the combined carbon—the amount of emissions associated with materials and construction—of low-level rail networks, Whoosh said.
Of course, this system remains untested, and many future transportation ideas have been obscured from its implementation. But the company is already targeting five North Texas cities in the US—Dallas, Plano, Arlington, Frisco, and DeSoto—as possible sites for Whoosh’s first US installation, its US partner said. and the Google spin-off, Swyft. Cities, which are in discussions with public and private sector clients. “They’re fast-growing areas, often built around traffic, and now, they’re realizing they’re stuck,” said Swyft Cities CEO Jeral Poskey. Part of what makes Whoosh a compelling option, he says, is that it’s “re-urbanizable,” with its modular infrastructure, allowing it to start small and grow over time.
Read more: From Scooters to Microtransit, Cities Are Embracing Alternatives to Short Car Trips
“It turns out, none of the new flying or self-driving or tunneling technologies are designed to solve the problem that most of the world is facing,” Poskey said. Subways cater to high-density centers, while cars, including private cars, suit urban congestion. Whoosh, which targets 1- to 5-mile hikes, offers a solution for those in the middle, he says. “We’re finding that people want to live in densely populated areas,” Poskey said, but “they’re not well supported by traffic or mass transit.”
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