COP Planning for practice

Access Automation has no registered surveyors and so cannot define boundaries, but they can measure the topography of the site. On big commercial sites, such as a block of town houses, there is a surveyor allocated to the project, along with other subcontractors, and boundary pegs are positioned around the site, which assists in the placement of the cable car. The surveyor would identify the centerline reference where the cable car rails are to go so that there is a datum to work from.

Cable car tracks can be constructed on various foundations.

If a little two-passenger cable car is to run over an existing concrete path which is sound, because the rail structure is not particularly heavy the rails can literally be bolted down onto the existing concrete.

Most often Access Automation lay their own foundations, which involves augering/boring a hole down to solid ground, on average 1.0 to 1.5 metres. Concrete pads are then put into the ground to hold the galvanized steel tubes to which the rails are attached. Access Automation employs a labourer to work on site.

On very steep sites or unstable ground a rock-drilling company is sub-contracted. Often they have to drill 4 to 6 metres into a bank to insert galvanized rock anchors.

A recent job on the hilly southern Wellington coastline offered a real challenge relating to unstable ground. Rock anchors were drilled six metres straight into the rock face. Two weeks were spent working on the foundations before construction of the track could begin.

The “terminal building" at the end of the track which houses the cable car is the responsibility of a builder contractor. Access Automation does, however, give clear instructions on clearances, spatial requirements, and recommended designs, but not aesthetic design.