New Park apps

I'm guessing you could get a decent time estimate with a couple photocells at the entrance and exit of the ride. This will keep track of how many people are in line, and how often people exit/enter the line. Not really exact science, but will give you an idea.

Of course, the length of the line itself is a good indication when the ride is running at full capacity.

What they incorporated a Ride Times page to the app that requested your location and then gave you results? You would still have control over your privacy if you didn't wish to participate - of course, this information wouldn't be very current since the majority of park guests don't have the Cedar Point app.

You wouldn't need a majority, you only need a sample. Disney doesn't hand out the red cards to every guest either.

The easiest way to automate the process of estimating wait times is by putting in two turnstiles, one at the entrance of the queue, and one into the station. This tells not only how many riders per hour the ride is currently handling (like one turnstile tells you), but also tells you exactly how many people are currently waiting. The main drawback to this method is it would require the addition of a lot of hardware -- specifically two sets of electronically monitored turnstiles per ride monitored, network cable, and new servers -- not to mention the cost of someone writing a program to turn raw data into cute graphs.

However this method would give much more accurate wait times then current methods. Last year at Kings Dominion, estimated wait times were gathered by a ride host's estimate (guess) that was phoned in every two hours.

That is the best idea I've heard on how to set wait times. I wonder if hardware and software for this is commercially available? It would seem like the cost would not be prohibitive, you can even modify traditional turnstiles to work with the system by adding a sensor for rotation.

I wouldn't build anything for generic commercial use because the market is way too small. That's why everyone pretty much rolled their own. That said, there are some interesting use cases with some open source and proprietary platforms that bridge the gap pretty fast. As inexpensive as Android phones and tablets are, it wouldn't be horribly expensive to implement or deploy custom stuff to manage data input in the field. Not surprisingly, it's pretty easy to start dreaming stuff up once you've got industrial WiFi around a park.