Electric cable cars as low‐carbon rural freight solutions: A sustainability evaluation framework and empirical evidence

Despite the importance of freight transport in low-carbon energy transition, the application of electric cable cars in rural freight transport remains underexplored. This study investigates the sustainability potential of cable cars through an in-depth study of the operation and transaction records of an electric cable car system, called iLogistics (with 22 logistics stations, five equipped with cable cars), in Anyuan County of Jiangxi Province, China from December 2020 to July 2023. With a novel rural sustainability assessment framework, this study integrates empirical transaction data to compare cable cars against traditional road freight and promising drone transport in terms of sustainability. Findings suggest that the existing cable car system reduces CO2, NOₓ, and PM2.5 emissions by around 8%, transport time by 18.09%, and transport cost by 21.83% across the network. Further scenario analysis shows that full cable-based transport could reduce emissions by over 90%, transport time by 96.35%, and transport cost by 82.45%, while drone transport could reduce transport time by 90.35% but increase transport cost by 8.52%. On social impacts, we conducted a place-interaction analysis based on the rural settlement hierarchy of counties, towns and villages. It was found that the iLogistics system has primarily supported rural-rural linkages, with consumer goods dominating all transactions. With better integration with e-commerce platforms, there is a strong potential for local specialty products to access urban markets. This study is among the first to offer empirical evidence on how the cable car technology can foster sustainability in rural freight networks.