Paris opens longest urban commuter cable car line in Europe

Paris commuters are now able to travel into the city from the south using a 4.5-kilometre cableway, claimed to be the longest urban cable car line in Europe, the operators, Île de France Mobilités, has announced.

The new line, which began running on Saturday, will have five stations and link up with the city's metro. Around 11,000 passengers are expected to use it daily. Terminus-to-terminus journey time will be 18 minutes, by contrast with 40 minutes for the bus.

The project cost almost €138 million ($162 million). Each cabin will have 10 seats.

Operators said the cable car was chosen because the area is criss-crossed by freight and high-speed rail lines and existing transport corridors are heavily congested.

Toulouse in the south of France has a 3-kilometre cableway. There are shorter lines in Barcelona and London. There are also alpine cableways of similar length. La Paz in Bolivia and Medellín in Colombia have urban cableways that are longer.