ON JUNE 21 Aéroports de Paris finally called a halt to testing with the 4·4 km SK-6000 peoplemover installed at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport. The cable-powered vehicles developed by Soulé were intended to run on two routes linking the airport’s terminals with the TGV and RER station, replacing the present bus services.
The decision to go for cable traction dates back to 1992, when a Fr410m bid from Matra for a VAL system was rejected in favour of a tender from Soulé for less than Fr300m. In 1996 Paris Transport Authority took an 87% stake in Soulé’s Système Transports subsidiary which was responsible for the SK development, but despite RATP’s best efforts, the specified reliability levels have never been attained.
The ADP board has now decided that enough is enough, and the intention is to call tenders for a contractor to dismantle the SK equipment and replace it with something that works reliably. With the cost of reconstruction likely to be around Fr800m and Fr1·2bn sunk by ADP and RATP with nothing to show for their money, the airport operator has paid rather more than it would have done for a proven design of mini-metro at the outset. And it is still a long way from having anything up and running. Airline passengers will have to suffer the buses for the foreseeable future.
