From Anthony Murphy on December 28, 2010 at 1:06 PM
Interesting article on line management at Disney. Its kinda cool to see how the manage lines like that!

As for the accident, while its a terrible thing, Disney actually has a pretty good safety record when it comes to guests.

My question is why all these accidents lately in the past few years with the busses, monorails, and other injuries.

From 66.207.75.174 on December 28, 2010 at 1:40 PM
"Great loaders can suck in a line faster than a former child actress in a New York disco." You win the award for funniest thing I've read all day. Good job!

From Brandon Mendoza on December 28, 2010 at 1:43 PM
As for the accident, it always lingers in my mind the next time I visit a theme park. Sad, and makes you remember that life can be taken away at anytime & anywhere.

Great article about line management... that's a great way to get crowd control into places when it's needed the most. That would be sweet if someone eventually wrote a book about "strategies for theme park crowd control", but that would be giving away trade secrets! I just don't care for the Space Mountain game. I'd prefer in-line entertainment to be more like Pooh Bear's or Indiana Jones'. More being part of the theme of the attraction, less of a game dropped in because it "kinda" fits in.

Btw, I snorted at that line about the former child actress comment. *pun intended*

From 99.138.94.15 on December 28, 2010 at 4:22 PM
When it comes to future ride design, if multiple parallel load/unload zones can be designed for boat rides, why not include more capacity to load guests than the ride throughput rate by adding a third load point. That way if the next boat is not available, the system will skip to the next available boat ready to pull out and put the next unload in that line. Yes PotC may have had problems but a good load system and software could easily handle this.

Also, the extra load capacity will cover for inexperienced loaders, wheelchairs, load safety isssues, or a broken loadout line. Due to the nature of a rides operation, I suspect the unload/load positions would be the most likely place for a mechanical failure compared to the simpler continuous operation elsewhere in the ride.

It costs a quite a bit more for the extra equipment, space, staff, and line complexity but it keeps throughput up when there are problems. Use the third line for fastpass and VIP loading and add special equipment for ADA/wheelchair loading to the line.

Off peak take one load position out of service. The third line, if positioned right, could also simplify and speed up putting boats in and taking boats out of service from the holding area as traffic and queue length changes. The new boat coomes in from holding just before load and goes out of service after the loadout. Moving the new boat in means only skipping a boat going to unload and instead accepting a new boat. Similarly, just redirect the out of service boat down the out of service line. The equipment is already there.

And not only do you need to suck the line in, you need a blow to get high capacity out at unload...

M