Penang Hill cable car project takes off

Photo: CHAN BOON KAI/The Star

GEORGE TOWN: The Penang Hill Cable Car project has taken off and is scheduled to be completed by the third quarter of 2026.

It would start from Penang Botanic Gardens which 1.2ha of land will be used for its three-storey Garden Station with food and beverage as well as retail outlets.

The 2.73km monocable line will feature 50 eight-seater gondolas to carry up to 1,000 passengers per hour up to the 833m-high hill station, with a ride time of less than 10 minutes.

At the top, a further 1.15ha land area will be used for its four-storey Hill Station with more similar outlets.

Only five pylon towers will be in the forest while the remaining 10 towers will be erected close to the upper and lower stations as well as the keep track, with no new road access being constructed.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim believes that the development would further spur appreciation towards nature on Penang Hill.

"Development in the city has to be culturally vibrant yet environmentally friendly.

"With the cable car project as a new mode of reaching the peak, more people especially the young will revisit Penang Hill, which is historical," he said during the groundbreaking ceremony of the project on Saturday (June 29).

Also present were Penang Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow and Hartasuma Group executive director Tan Sri Ravindran Menon.

Hartasuma, a pioneer in the Malaysian rail industry, was awarded a 30-year concession for the Penang Hill Cable Car through a Public-Private Partnership on a design, finance, build, operate, and transfer (DFBOT) basis in 2022.

The company has appointed Austria-based ropeway market leader, Doppelmayr Seilbahnen GmbHfor, to supply the cable car system. Doppelmayr's unrivalled track record, spans over 15,400 ropeway installations worldwide, including 86 cable car installations located in Unesco Heritage, Geopark, and Biosphere sites as well as various National Parks around the world.

In 2023, Penang Hill received 1.67 million visitors, edging towards its pre-pandemic peak of 1.9 million visitors in 2019.