Aerial ropeway is an effective alternative to the conventional modes of land public transport in metropolitan areas and cities. Construction of passenger aerial ropeways in urban environment is a very costly enterprise in terms of engineering and economics, and requires significant financial resources. This article is aimed at the development of the design method of the passenger aerial ropeway, ensuring the reduction in its construction cost. For this purpose, the individual components of the

more »

... onstruction cost are considered, and the approximate calculation dependencies are proposed. It is shown that the cost of the aerial ropeway is mainly influenced by the installation step, height of intermediate towers and carrying rope tension. The task of the conditional nonlinear optimization of the given parameters is formulated and solved in the research. This task ensures the minimum cost of the aerial ropeway. The optimization task is done by taking into account possible limitations on the ropeway laying in the severely urbanized environment (the terrain, urban infrastructure arrangement, altitude performance of the urban development, technical characteristics of the carrying rope, etc.). Implementing the solution findings of the given optimization task makes it possible to significantly reduce the construction cost of aerial ropeways in urban environment. Keywords Aerial passenger ropeway Á Urban environment Á Step of towers Á Height of towers Á Optimization Á Cost List of Symbols a Tnk The thermal elongation coefficient of the carrying rope [b] The critical slope angle to the horizon of the carrying ropes g m The coefficient of the wind reduction on the m-th carrying rope for the row of parallel ropes [28] l m ; l wm The irregularity coefficients of distribution of weight and wind loads on the m-th carrying rope from the passenger cabin w The coefficient of the tower structure reinforcement when there is tension T k max ¼ R kn =½n k having the maximum value under the permissible strength condition w f The coefficient of the permissible rope sag between the towers A cab The projected area of the cabin on the vertical plane The cost of the station buildings, A and B C eA ; C eB The cost of the technological equipment mounted at A and B stations C ti ; C fi ; C ei The unit cost of the metal structures, foundation and set of technological equipment for the i-th intermediate tower C kt ; C kn The cost of 1 running meter of the hauling and carrying ropes C sAðBÞ The cost of 1 m 2 of the station building A(B)