Maputo to introduce suspended transportation system; prices same as ‘Chapas’ – Watch

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Maputo to introduce suspended transportation system; prices same as ‘Chapas’ – Watch

3:43 CAT | 07 Jun 2021

Image: O País

Maputo municipality is promising that, by the end of 2022, Maputo city will have a gondola-style transport system with suspended vehicles called ‘FUTRAN’ and says that the city council already has a partner who has guaranteed US$250 million to finance the project. Construction will begin in September.

After the Automated Guideway Transit (AGT) promised by the Vice-minister of Transport and Communications, Manuela Rebelo, in 2017, and the surface metro of former mayor Simango’s reign, the city council now has a new promise. It is a type of transport based on the FUTRAN system with cars moving along suspended tracks, a project which, the municipality says, will be getting started in three months.

“Where the EN4 and the Maputo Ring Road ends, we will build two large multi-storey carparks. This will allow people entering the city to leave their cars and board these suspended vehicles to circulate around the city,” João Ruas, Chairman of the Municipal Mobility and Parking Company (EME) explains. “These vehicles will operate at the same price as the ‘chapas'”.

Despite the lack of space in the city of Maputo, Ruas says the system is feasible and sustainable at various levels.

“All mass transport solutions – buses and so on – demand readjustments to the city’s aesthetics. Our city was not designed to have 100 buses [on the roads] at the same time, for example. This solution has the advantage of having the devices suspended, they only occupy one square metre on the sidewalk, like a lamppost. They are electric and use solar panels, they are autonomous, and do not have a driver. They are commanded centrally,” he says.

João Ruas says there is a partner for the project, and Mozambique will not be suffer as a result of the business. The EME’s PCA went further in explaining the reasons for the failure of other projects.

“The state keeps 80% of the business and the partner, who comes in with US$250 million keeps 20%. The logic is that we have a fertile market that gives us a [good] yield, and in 25 years we will have recovered the invested capital. This should be seen as a company that generates money. Our problem is that we have confused the concept of what a company is. Every company, state-owned or private, its ultimate aim is to generate money. If you don’t make money, there’s no reason to exist. Our projects fail because we don’t set up the projects as companies,” Ruas expostulates.

The construction of the 40km line will be carried out by a joint South African-Chinese consortium. Work will start between September and October this year, and the system will come into operation between late 2022 and early 2023.

According to the Municipality representative, the system already operates in Miami (USA), and in Sweden, Germany, Japan and China. Mozambique will be the first African country to have this type of public transport.

Watch the STV video below.

By Raul Massingue

About FUTRAN

The FUTRAN Podcar system is a revolutionary, South African-developed public transportation system that holds the promise of transforming the way people and goods are moved in cities across the world. The technology is designed to facilitate low-cost, high-impact multi-modal transportation that can turn a meaningful profit.

Because of its low cost, high capacity and ease of deployment, the system is set to help transform the economic destiny of especially developing communities around the world. It is arguably the most exciting development in transportation technology since the invention of the jet engine.

By combining the benefits of automation, cost effective elevated guideway design, ultra-efficient electric motor technologies, shared utilization of vehicles and sophisticated grid-based traffic management, a new class of transportation system was developed that can be used to transform mining, manufacturing, distribution, people mobility and haulage.

Source: O País / FUTRAN