MOUNTAIN MERCHANDISE

After tests in 2019 of Beti, the autonomous electric shuttle bus in Val Thorens, Drôme coach company, Bertolami is still considering the concept of a merchandise centre in the resort. The idea is to open a merchandise hub in the valley to serve as a logistics platform, where merchandise would be loaded and passengers would board and be taken to the resort via decarbonised shuttle. “In the mountains, the concept needs to be considered. Assessment time is lengthy due to budget prioritisation for other projects, including valley lifts. While the resort’s former shuttle was free of charge, the autonomous shuttle must face up to a different economic reality. We are therefore continuing to educate mountain areas and we are preparing the French regulatory and legal ground”, explains Benjamin Beaudet, General Manager of Beti et Bertolami, elected European Talent in Mobility 2022 at the European Mobility Expo. While the mountains are still taking time to consider, the Val de Drôme federation of municipalities and the Cruas-Meysse power plant have, meanwhile, already moved over to the autonomous shuttle, with the commissioning of Beti vehicles, offering users an automated horizontal mobility service.

We expect to see air taxis in the skies above Paris by 2024, in time for the Olympic Games. The project, spearheaded by German start-up Volocopter, the ADP group and RATP, performed a flight under real conditions last November. The Volocity, an electric aircraft which takes off and lands vertically, like XXL drones with 18 rotors and 9 batteries, can transport two people (the pilot and one passenger), and also prove useful for logistics, maintenance and surveillance operations, from healthcare to medical transport. Two routes are envisaged in Paris: from the Issy-les-Moulineaux heliport to Saint-Cyr-l’École airport, and from Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle airport to a site at the Quais d’Austerlitz. While the 2024 flights will serve as a showcase, commercial development is set to start at the end of the decade. The cost of a ride will be the same as for a passenger car with driver, we are assured. So, when will we see air taxis in the mountains?

Introduced in winter 21/22, starting from Saint-Pancras in London (to replace the Eurostar which was axed during Covid), Travelski Express is speeding up its development by offering a train from Paris to several new French Alpine destinations from winter 22/23. By stepping up a gear on the rails, Travelski, a specialist of winter sports holidays, taken over in 2018 by the Compagnie des Alpes, hopes to make its train + stay package into a customer experience lever to help mountain regions with their transition. “As a tour-operator, we have a role to play in the economic transition of the Alps”, explains General Manager, Guillaume de Marcillac. During the 21/22 season, 5,000 British travellers used the London-Les Alpes line. For 22/23, the offer is expanding, with a train from Gare de Lyon in Paris to 5 Alpine resorts (Chambéry, Moûtiers, Bourg-Saint-Maurice, Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne and Modane), for a total of 21 ski resorts served in the Maurienne and Tarentaise Valleys. 18,000 seats will go on sale this year.

Flight-free Skiing is the motto of Ski Flight Free, a campaign which aims to encourage skiers to final alternative ways to travel to Alpine resorts. The goal being to reduce CO2 emissions, and one of the alternatives to planes are trains. On its website and social networks, Ski Flight Free provides information about mountain train lines, gives case studies for each line, deciphers the use of renewable energies in resorts and shares studies regarding customers’ expectations in terms of sustainable travel and land planning. “Climate change indicates that it is time to try train travel”, explains Iain Martin, founder of the new Ski Flight Free campaign.

skiflightfree.org

‘Robi’, the luggage robot in the Swiss resort of Saas-Fee, fulfilled its mission with 450 journeys last summer and 660 kilometres on the clock. Tested between October and November 2021, and again in summer 2022, the autonomous, remote controlled luggage assistant was a resounding success among locals and holidaymakers alike. Validated in ‘follow me’ mode, where it followed after clients, Robi was also tested in automated mode, using a virtual map. The pilot project will now be followed by an assessment stage of test data and users’ behavioural data.

Anne de Bortoli, a transport expert from the Parisian Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées:

“The carbon footprint of an urban cable-car causes three times less impact than a bus and five times less than a car”.

AUSTRIA’S SNOW SPACE SALZBURG SKI AREA TRANSPORTS VISITORS TO THE RESORT BY TRAIN FOR FREE

Since this winter, you can travel free of charge by public transport to one of the large Snow Space Salzburg ski areas in Flachau, Wagrain and St. Johann/Alpendorfen, for the online purchase of a ski or cross-country ski pass from the province of Salzburg. The initiative is part of the ski area’s overall strategy to cut CO2 emissions drastically and to reach carbon neutrality by 2025. The consideration about traffic (responsible for around 70% of the emissions from a day of skiing) is the backbone of the resort’s sustainable development strategy. This new offer is made possible thanks to cooperation between Snow Space Salzburg Bergbahnen, the Salzburg Transport Association and the Province of Salzburg.

- Transport from anywhere in the country by public transport is free

- Regional and long-distance traffic schemes

- Goal to achieve a CO2 neutral ski day

Introduced in spring 2022, the last two urban lines delivered by Poma, in Toulouse and in Saint-Denis de la Réunion, have already transported 1 million people. France, a pioneer in Europe, is opening the way to mobility that makes sense, by opting for transport which is accessible to all, fast and environmentally-friendly in its urban areas. As the longest urban cable-car ever built in France (3 km), the Toulousaine Téléo line can transport 8,000 passengers/day, ultimately bringing about a reduction in road traffic. On the subject of urban cable-cars, Anne de Bortoli, a transport expert from the Parisian Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées points out, “their carbon footprint is very low. We must focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in towns and cities, and promoting the use of electric public transport is the future”.

Focus: Comparison: which is the most polluting method of transport?

1. 14 g of CO2/passenger/km for trains

2. 42 g of CO2/passenger/km for small cars

3. 55 g of CO2/passenger/km for average size cars

4. 68 g of CO2/passenger/km for buses

5. 72 g of CO2/passenger/km for motorised twowheel vehicles

6. 285 g of CO2/passenger/km for planes

(Source: European Environment Agency reports – 2019)