Struggling with inertia: Regime barriers opposing planning and implementation of urban ropeways

•Planning routines in German public transport do not yet match with urban ropeways.•Public transport actors are generally very open towards considering urban ropeways.•Lacking experiences at the local level require additional efforts for clarification.•The general suitability of established planning tools is questioned.•Considering planning routines is important in approaching a mobility transition. Urban ropeways are a novel option to extend public transport. Technically suited to a range of use cases, urban ropeways have not yet been implemented as part of a public transport solution in Germany. Rather than the technology itself, specific routines and practices of the public transport service regime have been identified as main challenges. Building on series of expert workshops conducted in 2017 (23 participants in total), we look beyond technical characteristics and study the preparedness of service regime actors regarding processes and routines as well as structural factors of inertia. Generally, we observe an increasing openness towards reflecting about integrating urban ropeways into public transport. However, misalignment is still clearly visible: First, lacking experiences with this new option at the local level imply a time-consuming need for information and clarification. Second, and more fundamentally, the suitability of established planning routines is questioned, which is critical because the dense regulatory framework existing in Germany currently requires these. We discuss the implications at the level of the service regime and the relevance of these structural mechanisms in considering technological potentials in a mobility transition more generally. [Display omitted]