The Economist published today another article about the success of the cable car in Latin America where they explain that the following factors are key for its success:

• Landscape of the cities (hilly)
• Fast construction time (the mayors can cut the ribbons within their legislative)
• Little displacement of people
• Positive development effects in the respective regions (less criminality) – but this has not been proven yet.

I think however that a few key technocratic reasons have been omitted in this article:

• Low construction costs per passenger capacity
• With high capacity cabs manages 6k pphpd – depending on the design even more
• High flexibility to adjust to passenger demand by addition/reduction of cabs
• Reshaping the city by creating multimodal hubs with stations

This is of course also limited by the obvious disadvantages:

• Acceptance by inhabitants due to privacy issues
• “high-tech” system that requires training to operate and maintain
• Construction projects that are prone to direct or indirect corruption

Overall, cable car as a solution for public transport in urban areas with geographic challenges will certainly play is a major role. In principle, they are not the only solution, but they become more and more mature and should be considered as a suitable approach to the challenge.