Wait Time Toteboard

I have had this on my mind for a while. Why can't CP erect 4 or 5 toteboards scattered throughout the park with wait times of all rides listed on them(like the arrival and departure boards at airports). They could put one at the front near the Raptor, one at the split near the Corkscrew, one near the Millenium, one near the Dragster, and one in Frontier Town. This way you would not have to walk from the TTD to the MF and find out that the line is way too long then have to fight the crowds(and kids) back over to where you were.

I know CP could afford it(how cheap would that be anyway). They can spend $25 million on two coasters(not to mention Castaway Bay is in the same range) you think they would spend a very small amount of money to inprove their guests experience in the park.

Or maybe they are just trying to get us to exercise!!!

Feels good to get that off my chest.....

Islands of Adventure does that and I think it would be a great idea for Cedar Point. It's really nice to know the wait times for all of the major rides from different points in the park besides right in front of the entrances.

That sounds like a good idea, but I think it would be kind of hard to keep all 5 signs updated...maybe if they were electronic (like at an airport) so they can just update the screens right from the ride, and it could also tell you if it's broken down. I still don't think they could predict the wait times. Maybe if they study the queues of each ride, and try to estimate the wait times from different points in the line, it could work out.

The ride ops can predict it enough to indicate it on the little sign at the entrance. They could phone a central control station at park operations every time the wait changed. They then could flip a couple of buttons and all the boards in the park would change at the same time.

I think that's what he was getting at. I could just see employees at CP running around like the stock market, 'Buy Buy, Sell Sell' and changing the ride wait times;)! About the wait time predictions, idk how they exactly do that. The vantage point theory is probably correct, so a change in how fast they're getting the trains moving can change the wait time, obviously.

-Eagle-

So on Busy Saturdays, you want to advertise the fact that every single major attraction has a 1 hour wait all over the park?

Sure, it's great for pointing out rides without much of a line, but when you're packed like sardines, who wants to be reminded of it?

Magic Kingdom in Disney world also does that. I don't know about any of the other parks though.

We've been suggesting this around here for years, but apparently it's not a good enough suggestion to implement. While it could be high tech and electronic, a simple dry erase board at the bigger rides would be adequate. Every half hour, the person working entrance calls the entrance at the other rides and updates them. They'd have to stop admitting people into the line for a moment on an update, but I don't think that would be a big deal.

They have that at Mont Tremblant, during the winter. At the top of the mountain there is a sign....

Gondola
TGV
Flying Mile
Lowell Thomas
Expo
Portu du Soliel
Le Soliel Express
Duncan Express
Edge.....

etc. and then they have across the top 0-15 minutes 15-30 minutes 30-45 minutes 45-60 minutes, or closed if the lifts not running. It's sorta nice to know if it's safe or not to go to the base because 1 hour lines for the gondola aren't pretty.

But yea it would be a great idea for CP

Islands of Adventure rarely updated the times on the boards. It would say 15min for Spiderman and I'd get over there and it would be 90min. Didn't bother me though, key card to hotel room= express lane! *** Edited 8/4/2004 3:29:21 AM UTC by DubbSlaw3***

It would be very easy to have an electronic version of this. Add a sensor to the entrance turnstile to count rotation and add a turnstile to the exit ramp that also counts rotation. Do some calculations with this data and you have real time wait lengths based on actual throughput, no human intervention needed.

CP could probably fabricate this in-house, put a prox sensor on the turnstile and interface it with a common PC to do the calculation and send data to the display board.

It doesn't even need to be that sophisticated. You can look at the queue and say, "That's a half hour." I'm sure we've all learned the real wait times of the MF queue over the years and ignored the sign.

Jeff is right look at what Cedar Point did with the fastpass idea. They put in the most low tech system to use. It works well for them I think.

Well, I don't get those signs they use at the entrances. When it says "You will have a _ minute wait from this point" does that mean from that spot in line, or is that just how long the wait is?

If you think about it, the answer to your question is "both", assuming the line ends somewhere past there.

When it isn't quite so clear is when the line extends past the sign...

(you know, like Raptor at 11:00am on Saturday...)

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

The only place I have seen boards like that were at IOA, but they were only updated like every hour and a half. So at first they seemed like a great idea to me, until I arrived at Spiderman to find a 2.5 hour wait when the sign said 1 hour.

Spiderman must be a great ride, huh?

That Spiderman Ride is an awesome experience!

What kind of ride is it?

-Eagle-