Phalanger, on 06 April 2014 - 01:27 AM, said:
Doppelmayr has 4,550 pph design using a angle loading, where the chairs and the people approach offline from each other. The weak point is unloading the chairs more than loading them. There are also 4,000 pph beginner 8 seaters now which averaged very low stops, when the snow on the exit ramp was kept at the right angle. Making it flatter made it worse.
https://www.youtube....h?v=HkgW0iQckfs
However some of the new gondolas are also really impressive, Solden has an 8 person Doppelmayr one which does 3,600 pph at 6m/s. These use the longer platforms for loading.
https://www.youtube....h?v=6Iwm7vhUuAU
Ridden Tommeuses many times, it was definitely needed. The original proposal was for a 8 person gondola to replace the twin double fixed chairs, but this was then changed to a 8 person chair. From what I can recall from the discussion on remontees mecaniques at the time, this was due to a proposal by Doppelmayr that the 8 person chair with the asymmetrical contour would be more efficient at loading than a gondola, and the main goal was to return guests to tignes as fast as possible at the end of the day. During the day the lift runs nowhere near capacity, but come 3:30-5pm there are very few gaps on the chair as its the only way back to get back to Tignes from that valley, unless you want to fight for a place on the ski bus. In the human cattle herd that is the 'queue', the angry russian oligarchs wives and the french make sure to push right into every available gate so empty seats are few and far between.
The vast majority of the stops were caused by people not clearing the unloading area and causing a pileup. For the flow of people at that hour from Tommeuses and the other 6 pack and gondola that share the same landing is quite compact.
The sheer amount of people that concentrate at that point at the end of the day is quite staggering due to the vastness of Espace Killy. Literally thousands of skiers descend on that one lift towards the end of the day. I think most north American resorts would struggle to meet the surge STGM experiences each day at that point.