single rider line ?

Yeah, I don't think mentioning "ejection" with Intamin coasters is a good idea.

djDaemon said:
That's the problem. What if I'm a legitimate single rider stuck behind 3-dozen teens (all from the same group), all of which are trying to 'beat the system' by jumping into the single rider line?

But all those teens still have to ride separately. They're just as "legitimate" as you because they'll be riding themselves. *** Edited 6/29/2007 6:19:02 PM UTC by halltd***

No, they're not legitimate. They could all be paired up in the 'normal' line (18 pairs of them), while I (a single rider) could be 36 people closer to the station.

But that the thing about the single rider line is that it would then be longer of a wait for the big group. that group would now be consider single riders, and would have to ride seperately making the line SRL longer for the "true" single riders. if they go in to the SRL they are single rider and have ever right to do so no matter the size of the group.
My family does this on test track all the time cause it a good ride, but not worth a 2 hour wait.

Miss_Maverick07 said:
I was there before and no employee called any single riders. I would feel dumb if I just went up to the line, so I waited and I felt it was waisting my time when I could be called up. then when I got to the to top of the stairs, a worker came and let me in, even though it was not worth it anymore cuz I had waited so long. Are you allowed to walk to the single rider line without a host calling you?

Yes, you are allowed to jump out of the line at WWL quene and hop back in the line next to the staircase even if a host isn't there.

Thats just asking for a fight to break out...

Even with a ride host, I got plenty of dirty looks when I bypassed the queue house for the Single Rider line. They have to have it clearly marked at whatever point they are going to allow entry into it. You can't just have people walking around the whole queue.

djDaemon said:
No, they're not legitimate. They could all be paired up in the 'normal' line (18 pairs of them), while I (a single rider) could be 36 people closer to the station.

A single rider line is for people who want to ride the coaster by themselves with the POSSIBLE benefit of not having to wait as long. There's no guarantee this line will in fact be shorter than the normal queue. Like many others have said, the single rider line is designed to increase the OVERALL capacity of the ride by filling empty seats more easily. It is NOT designed to allow single park guests to jump the queue. That could be a potential benefit, but it's not why the line exists in the first place.

If a group of six people enter this line and are willing to ride separately, they are more than welcome to do so. They're no less of a single rider than someone who is at the park alone or just riding the coaster alone. It's not like you're paying for the single rider line or something. That's one of the most ridiculous things I've read on here.

I'm assuming the single rider line starts at the bottom of the stairs leading to the station? I was only there for the ride's opening day, so they weren't using it yet. Are they putting a ride host at the bottom of the stairs, or just having the guy at the station entrance handle it?

halltd said:
In general, though, I totally agree with you. I've never been to another park (besides Disney) that asks for single riders. So, it's annoying waiting in the queue watching almost full rows of the trains go empty.

They had the single rider line at Island of Adventure. They had it on The Hulk coaster that sat 4 riders per row. The single riders would fill in when groups had 3 riders. My wait was cut from 1 hour to about 15 minutes. *** Edited 6/30/2007 12:06:40 AM UTC by sarah1***

I think the single rider line is great. While I was just at the Point, sometimes my family would seperate and this line saved me 20 or minutes on one occasion. More than 1 time a ride host came to the bottom of the stairs and asked for single riders.
Also up till 2005 Six Flags Great Adventure had single rider lines on all the coasters, but slowly fazed them out for some reason. *** Edited 6/29/2007 10:01:02 PM UTC by 9 hour ride to RIDE!!***

halltd said:

A single rider line is for people who want to ride the coaster by themselves with the POSSIBLE benefit of not having to wait as long.

...but you get this possible benefit by sacrificing your choice of seats. You get through line quicker, but you have to sit where there's an open seat. This point has been absent from this thread. The single rider line is not just an express lane for the solo rider. It's simply there so the trains go out full.

First of all, any effort to eliminate empty seats on the more crowded rides makes sense. Empty seats are not caused, for the most part, by individuals riding by themselves. For the most part, empty seats are caused by groups having odd numbers (i.e. 3, 5, 7, etc.) of people in them.

The solution to this problem should be fairly simple. Couple this with the fact that the problem can take about 60 minutes to solve -- assuming the line is an hour long.

Rather than the ride host advertising for "single riders", the ride host should be advertising for "odd-numbered parties". Rather than running them completely around the queue line, the odd-numbered riders could be matched up while in the queue line. No need to physically separate from your party until the other identified single reaches the halfway point on the stairway.

Groups know as soon as they enter the queue whether they are an even-numbered party or an odd-numbered party. Matching them up in place should be a simple task that is non-disruptive to those in line.

The current "any single riders" on Maverick is the worst implementation I have seen at any park -- and I have been to many of them!

The problem is one that can be solved slowly and effectively. It should not be very hard to do.

^^ I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here. You want them to make even groups as people ENTER the queue from the midway? That doesn't seem very efficient to me. Plus, where are you going to grab the single riders from?

The best way to do this is what Disney does. They have the single rider queue and the regular queue. Before you enter the ride vehicle (or station in CP's case), the ride op asks how many in each group from the regular queue. If it is even, the ride op assigns a row (or rows) to the group. This is no different than what is done on Power Tower. If there is an odd number, the ride op assigns rows and then pulls someone from the single rider queue to make the overall group even. This is partially why Disney's capacity is so high. In situations like Expedition Everest, if there are two rows left in the train and six people in the next regular queue group, the ride op will pull four single riders to fill in that train.

If you stand in any Disney station and watch the ride ops do their thing and trains continuously go out, you'll realize they know what they're doing. It just baffles my mind why other parks can't seem to grasp this concept. Cedar Point has a ride op sitting at the turnstile in most all coaster stations, so why don't they have them doing crowd control instead of just sitting there checking kids' height?

They even painted numbers on the floor for each row of Maverick. Do they assign rows on this or not? If not, why'd they even bother with those numbers? Actually, Wicked Twister used to assign rows. Do they still do this or not? I always like the empty station with only enough people for the next train.

edit for ^ *** Edited 7/4/2007 3:55:37 PM UTC by halltd***

Intamin AG, are you gonna say something?

by the way, I don't like lines that assign rows, I like to choose my row and by happy with that. MF still does that, but they keep the station empty with WT but they are not as strict at Wt when they give rows.

If you don't like the row, ask for another one. Ninety percent of the time, they'll honor your request. But, for the average park goer, they don't care what row they're in. They just want to ride with their friends. In that case, assigning a row saves a TON of confusion by eliminating people letting rows go empty because they wanted to "line up with their friends two rows up in the train."

Halltd,

I never stated that you had to form even groups as people enter the queue line, I merely stated that, as a problem solver (problem being empty seats), you know at the time parties enter the queue whether they are an even-numbered group (and not contributing to the problem of empty seats) or they are an odd-numbered group (and could be contributing to the problem of empty seats).

I am suggesting that instead of having a ride host run through the entire queue advertising for "single riders" (of which, there are actually quite few) have the ride host run through the queue advertising for "odd-numbered parties". By identifying odd-numbered parties and pairing up one person from one odd-numbered party with another person from another odd-numbered party -- close to them in the queue -- you eliminate the problem of empty seats without distrupting (and irritating) large numbers of people in the queue.

The effect is that you have the same ride host that runs through the line now performing the any-single-riders task would perform then any-odd-numbered groups task. Although you could have the heighth-checker performing this task if that task could be reasonably added to their responsibilities.

As for ride capacity, I beg to differ that Disney Parks put much emphasis on ride capacity. I think the Cedar Fair properties, as a group, are much better at driving rider capacity than Disney or Six Flags (sic!).

I also disagree that the "empty platform" idea is a good one. First of all, many customers prefer to select their own seat. I really like the TTD/Raptor platform designs. It allows the customer to select their seat (this is especially important when the customer has been in line for 45 - 90 minutes). At the same time, the law of supply and demand will cause all rows to eventually get filled.

I always hated the way the Blue Streak queue used to operate (back when the brakes were manual and you entered from the midway side of the ride). Riders were literally assigned rows with no real ability to change. You would wait 45 minutes to ride and end up in row 5 or 6.

In my opinion, queue management is a source of customer satisfaction/dissatisfaction. The more choices (seat options) you can give the customer, the better. When customers see other customers (single riders) seemingly "cutting" or "tunneling" in line around them, they get upset. That is why CF did away from Freeway passes. That is why CF must be careful about this "single rider" solution, in my opinion.

By far, more people attend Disney Parks than Cedar Fair. You may not see Disney placing emphasis on capacity, but that's because it all works so flawlessly for them. Disney assigns rows on practically every single ride they have. So, I don't think saying the majority of people prefer a specific row is accurate. Maybe the majority of enthusiasts prefer specific rows, but not the majority of their guest population by any means.

Your concept of pairing up odd numbered groups sounds like way more effort than just sticking one person with another group of people. I can just envision all types of confusion and delayed trains with that method. Besides, I'm assuming you're assigning rows in this method, otherwise, there's no way to guarantee those groups will align when it comes time to board the train. The goal is to make the solution simple and effective. That's what a single rider queue does if implemented properly. Again, see Disney.

All rows may be filled in the queue with the "law of supply and demand". But, if someone wants to "align" with the rest of their group in the next row, they will leave a row go empty. I've seen this happen on practically every park trip I've ever taken. The more time people take in the station, the longer the entire queue gets. It's a domino effect.