Jessica Lim Straits Times 14 Jun 12;
A NEW cable car system in Sentosa will help ease congestion on the island and may even become a tourist attraction in its own right, say travel agents and tour guides.
Sentosa Development Corporation, which manages the island, has not decided if it will charge for rides on the new intra-island transport system to be built by 2015.
Rides on the monorail and buses within the island are free.
"Sentosa has become more crowded over the years and sometimes the roads are quite congested," said Ms Alicia Seah, CTC Travel?s senior vice-president for marketing and public relations.
"With more connections between attractions, people will be more open to the idea of leaving their cars at home. It may also become a tourist attraction in itself," she said, adding that cities like Sydney also have cable-car rides within major tourist attractions.
Tour guide M. Loganathan, 52, who takes one tour group to Sentosa a week, said there is often a bottleneck at certain venues on the island.
He and his group have to wait about 10 minutes to exit the coach bay after popular shows like Songs Of The Sea end in the evenings.
"Things will just get worse when more people come," he said, noting that Sentosa is already experiencing a surge in visitor numbers.
"This also opens up the possibility for us to drop tourists off at a cable-car station and then let them take a ride to the attraction," he added. "This way, the coach doesn't have to move around on the island at all."
Currently, private vehicles, coaches and taxis account for 56 per cent of inbound arrivals while the monorail, cable car from Mount Faber and boardwalk make up the rest.
Industry watchers like Ngee Ann Polytechnic senior lecturer in tourism Michael Chiam said the new system would help to ease congestion at the three areas where the stations will be located - Merlion Plaza, Imbiah Lookout and Siloso Point.
The new cable system will also help rejuvenate the island and preserve its allure as a tourist destination.
Said Mr Chiam: "Tourist attractions like Sentosa need to constantly stay attractive and renew themselves to attract repeat visitors."
Sentosa, which opened as an island resort in 1972, turns 40 this year.
To celebrate, Singaporeans born in 1972 will be given free island admission via the Sentosa Express monorail and Sentosa Boardwalk in August and September.
Sentosa to build new cable car line
Jessica Lim Straits Times 14 Jun 12;
SENTOSA is rolling out another cable car service in 2015 to make it easier for the growing number of visitors to get around the island.
The 860m-long link - half the length of the current cableway linking Sentosa to Mount Faber - will transport visitors within the island between the three main clusters of attractions at Merlion Plaza, Imbiah Lookout and Siloso Point.
The new line will be able to hold up to 38 cabins.
The current three-station link, at 1.72km, holds 68. It was opened in 1974, but has been upgraded four times since.
The shape and design of the cabins have yet to be determined, but they will seat eight passengers each and be enclosed, not unlike those in the current system.
Work is expected to start next year and be completed by 2015.
Sentosa Development Corporation (SDC), which manages the island, is unable to reveal the cost as the tender, which closed recently, has not been awarded to a contractor yet.
The new three-station transport link will complement the current free intra-island monorail and bus service. The system will help handle the surge in visitor numbers, said SDC.
By the end of the month, the island will welcome its 150 millionth guest since it first opened as an island resort in 1972.
Numbers have jumped from 6.2 million in 2009 to 19 million last year, on the back of the opening of Resorts World Sentosa and Universal Studios theme park.
Even more visitors are expected in the next few years, with the opening of attractions like KidZania - Singapore's first theme park targeted at children - in 2014.
SDC chief executive Mike Barclay said the cableway will be a key addition to the island's transport network and will help meet Sentosa's future transport demand.
'The aim is for guests to spend as little time as possible in queue lines while they move about the island,' he said, noting that the highest point of the cableway will be 80m above sea level.
The new system will be able to move about 1,600 people per hour in one direction.
The waiting times will also be shorter - 18 seconds, compared with the three minutes for the monorail and 15 minutes for the bus.
The current cable car system - operated by Mount Faber Leisure Group, a fully owned subsidiary of SDC - goes up to 120m above sea level at its highest point, to allow ships to pass under it.
It has a capacity of 2,000 guests per hour per direction, while the monorail can take up to 4,000 guests per hour per direction.
SDC will issue a tender for building the stations soon and has not ruled out extending the system to the rest of the island.
The idea of building a cable car system on the island itself was first mooted in 2009, when SDC conducted a feasibility study on the project.
The new system is part of the statutory board's $250 million transport plan, which included the Sentosa Boardwalk that opened early last year.
By 2015, a road tunnel by the Land Transport Authority - connecting outbound traffic from Sentosa to Kampong Bahru and Keppel roads - is also expected to be ready.