Aerial tramway

An aerial ropeway in which cabins travel back and forth along a fixed route suspended from cables. Its cabins reverse direction at terminal stations rather than circulate continuously.

Carrying rope: A tensioned cable that supports the weight of a ropeway vehicle while it travels. It bears each tramway cabin between towers, separately from the cable that moves it.
Gondola lift: An aerial lift whose cabins circulate continuously around a closed cable loop. Unlike a tramway, a gondola lift sends many cabins continuously around its route.
Roosevelt Island Tramway: An aerial tramway connecting Roosevelt Island to Manhattan in New York City. It demonstrates how a shuttle tramway can provide urban transit across a river.
Andrew Smith Hallidie: A Scottish-American engineer associated with developing San Francisco's cable car system. His wire-rope expertise helped establish techniques later used in aerial cableways.
Haul rope: A moving cable that pulls vehicles along a ropeway route. It draws cabins between terminals while carrying ropes support them.
Funicular: A rail-guided system in which cars are hauled up and down a steep incline, often in balance. Both commonly use counterbalanced vehicles, but a funicular runs on rails rather than overhead cables.
Wellington Cable Car: A funicular railway connecting central Wellington with the Kelburn hillside. Despite its name, it is a rail-based incline system, not an aerial tramway.
Wire rope: A flexible cable made from strands of metal wires twisted or laid together. Advances in wire rope made long, load-bearing aerial spans practical.
Aerial lift grip: A device that connects an aerial lift vehicle to a cable, either fixed or detachable. Tramway cabins use grips to connect their suspension assemblies to the haul rope.
Chairlift: An aerial lift that carries passengers on open seats attached to a circulating cable. Its continuously circulating chairs differ from tramway cabins that shuttle between endpoints.

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