This makes want to see a redo of US park operations videos. Taylor's "Train dispatched every x seconds" and leaving it at that is no longer cutting it lol
Now this kind of video is what I love to see. This sounds like the beginning of a massive global effort to gather data on rides. Or at least I’d love to see it and would help with my home parks. You could get a lot of data with everyone spread out, though the US parks are especially bad right now due to massive staffing shortages. Tatsu at SFMM is down 2 staff on the restraint checks so the dispatches are probably pushing 3 minutes or more. Much worse than what Galactica seems to be doing.
Gotta say Oblivion always felt the fastest to me in that I never actively queued. I always felt like I was moving even during busy times and only actively stopped once I was pretty much at the ride building. The Smiler even when I was able to use Single Rider queues always took what felt like eternity to ride on. So I just stopped riding on it.
Two rides on smiler on Sat 3 Jun (half term) 2023, got on both times within 5 mins and there were less than 5 people in front, walked straight into station
As a former ride op and teamleader at Europa - Park & Walibi Holland its great to see a video that goes so in dept about operations! Just a fun fact; at Condor at Walibi Holland we got a capacity of 709 riders per hour. Theoretically its 640 per hour :) best we ever did that year was a 15 second dispatch! Getting the team highly motivated and the guests involved (aka turning it into a game of sorts) is the key to succes!
Hi Aleks that would be fantastic! I mis-clicked on your Instagram message and deleted it by accident. Can you message me on there again and we can discuss it further? Thanks :)
@@genericaccount7422 iirc it's partly due to the accident (I'm not sure if they had 5 trains during any other season, but they definitely added a 5th train on that day which is the train that was crashed into) but also I'm pretty sure smiler only has 5 block sections, and a coaster needs 3 block sections for 2 trains (a spare is needed for safety purposes) so 5 trains wouldn't be viable when there are 5 block sections Again, this is based on memory from a few years ago, so I'd recommend checking out a video explaining block sections cuz I think that's where I got this info from
Great video. Really interesting, the contrast between how ambitious some manufacturers are about their theoretical capacity! Some really superb footage throughout as well.
I found this fascinating. I used to work at Walt Disney World, where I ran 4 separate attractions, and was even an efficiency coach at one at times, where it was my job to ensure we hit our hourly capacity numbers! Disney’s numbers… I won’t say what they are… but they were much higher haha. I am excited to see future videos in this series!
I wouldn't expect anything more. Places like MK at Disney World have close to 10 times the attendance figures of Alton Towers. I'd expect the more popular Disney rides to be maintaining 2000 as a minimum. I would be interested in knowing what numbers you were managing. Also, did you count people rather than trains? Obviously my assumption is every train is completely full, whereas I imagine parks have detailed throughput figures counting the exact number of people. :)
@@peedlejaydle it wouldn’t really benefit from being on all 7 as all the shuttles would be stacked however on my Alton towers visit in June 2021, oblivion was on 6 shuttles and 2 stations and the queue was advertised an hour and we waited no more than 25 mins
I'm willing to bet that once this series comes to an end, Europapark will be on top. Never visited a park with quicker operations. Apparently a 45min wait is considered obscene over there. Visited mid-july and never waited more than 30 min.
Great video, Harry; really interesting to see the real world throughputs these rides get! I did some throughput timing of my own at Alton on my last visit, and I did get some different readings to you; for Wicker Man, I got 1059pph, which is higher than your reading of 973pph, and I also clocked Oblivion at 1156pph, which is a fair bit higher than your 897pph. On the flip side, I got a far lower Thirteen reading of 957pph, which is way lower than your 1210pph. I think that just shows that operations can vary a fair bit, if nothing else! Out of interest, how did you calculate the theoretical throughput of rides that had less trains than their full capacity (e.g. Smiler was 985 instead of 1200 and Oblivion was 1108 instead of 1900)? Also, if you’re wanting to do more videos like this, I’d recommend an app named Dispatch Timer. It makes timing these things very easy, and is free to download on the App Store!
Thanks! As you saw it's all relative to that one experience on the day. Realistically it'd be great to get multiple readings across multiple days. How many readings did you take usually to create an average? We aimed for about 10. I also removed readings that were 2 standard deviations away from the mean, putting this down to guests unnecessary extending dispatch times. To determine the throughput on less trains I measured the time it takes one train to navigate the circuit. You can then use the theorectical dispatch time to see how long it would take to dispatch all your trains. For example, the smiler on 4 trains should theorectically dispatch all 4 with about 10/20 seconds or so to spare before train 1 returns back into the station. Using this you can generate a new throughput which adjusts for this time where theorectically nothing is happening. I've heard about that app. I like to have all of the individual readings though so I can do some additional analysis (like finding the standard deviation). But for most cases that app works great :)
@@coasterbot Ah right; cheers, Harry! I used an average of 5 to calculate my throughputs in the vast majority of cases. I guess your rule of 10 might be slightly more accurate, as more data is always better, but I thought that 5 was a nice rule of thumb to go for, as I sometimes didn’t have the time to calculate 10 dependant on how long the queue was.
It's a time consuming process. We actually watched most of the rides go round for 15/20 minutes capturing dispatch times. No measure is really perfect unless you take huge amount of readings across multiple days of the year, but sadly we don't have time to do that! Ha ha :)
@@coasterbot You still managed to get enough readings to make a great video! I’ll be intrigued to see what your readings unveil for parks where the ride throughputs typically aren’t as high as Alton’s, like Blackpool Pleasure Beach or Chessington. Or basically any other non-Alton park in the UK, to be honest.
The biggest factor that changes these numbers are bigger guests who delay the dispatch because they can’t fit in the restraint. All ride ops know the pain of getting a 2:30 minute dispatch because a larger person has to leave. Also, Oblivion can run 7 trains? That’s insane! That ride is so short I thought it was a 2, maybe 3 train ride.
You knew what you were doing putting Icon as the first point of comparison. Icon deserves it's reputation as the gold standard for operations in the U.K. You're always queing out the door for it, but you're on it 20 minutes later every time. The park staff are wizards. If you do revisit this concept at Towers though, I would love to see estimations for the Mine Train. I feel my soul leave my body any time I have to queue for that ride. Entire planets are birthed, grown to maturity and die out whilst i'm still stuck waiting to ride.
13 was awful when i went, so was galactica. The Smiler and Rita were great! It's so different depending on the day and everything else . I loved this video so much!
Your clip in the intro of Speed at Oakwood sent me back in time. Used to be a ride op there. Honestly, nevermind efficiency, any time a ride makes it back in to it's station with all it's wheels still attached and no missing passengers is a miracle. That place is awful.
Why can I picture this exact type of analysis for a couple going on a date and how long it takes to get from first to second base and so on. Then the voice over continues, now his expectations were..... fill in the blank, but his actual output of reaching that goal was in fact this long. And on it goes. Not exactly hilarious stuff, but great fun and silliness. Maybe on this channel on April Fools Day next year? Grab your date and Coaster Bot will grab his calculator! Better watch out all you Ritas! He's watching you.
They need to bring back those covid staff, I yesterday operations were TRASHHHHH. Oblivion was only running one load station and only dispatching a train every 3 minutes, we had immense stacking, 3 trains all piled up on the two break runs waiting for the 4th to unload. Such a mess. And as you may have heard, Nemesis has been running at half capaciry, only loading the front half of each train, which was a nightmare for queue times and not getting an intense back row ride. Smiler queue usually moves steadily but it breaks down so often. The best operations of the day was Airlactica, and we got a back row ride too which shocked me with it's intensity (compared to the rest of the train)
Interesting video. My question is this; do the dispatch intervals compiled here include the amount of time that it takes the next train to enter the station upon the incumbent train dispatching? I would assume thats the case in this video. The Coaster Studios dispatch series focuses more on how quickly operators could operate a ride rather than the resulting attraction capacity. They're enjoyable, but not intended for accurate calculations. This video is an interesting take on capacity though that I've not seen online, I applaud the math here.
I really like the series, but IMO this video was about 3/4 minutes longer than it needed to be. Maybe make it more concise but if people prefer this then I'll defo keep watching anyway ')
Thanks! I'd be interested to hear what specifically you'd cut out. You could take out the brief one line about each ride, or the explanation of how to measure the capacity of a roller coaster, but both add value I think?
@@coasterbot I'd defo take out the measurement methods, maybe justified for the first video but if it becomes a series then less so. Max 1 minute per ride, especially when parks contain >5 major coasters. Also, the introduction could be shorter than 1:30 :)
Galactica operations are awful which we know anyway went Monday queue board was 50 minutes actual wait was 2 hours 15 minutes wasted half our day and it didn't even break down during that time operations were just slower than normal. Great video
I wish Rita was like stealth, always loaded with trains to send out, way way shorter queues than Rita it’s just quicker and you could say, better than Rita. But I love both coasters none the less
I really liked how when I was watching the smiler two trains would go up the lift hills at the same time and the train going up the sloped one reached the top first meaning it'd wiz past the one still going up the vertical one
Such an interesting series idea... There is one thing you've potentially missed out here.. The depreciation factor. You can't push an older coaster to hit theoretical capacity because if you do, they would fall apart (not literally, of course) - but you would risk more mechanical breakdowns or stoppages than if you took it slightly easier on the operations. So, your theoretical capacities are good as estimates when the coaster is in the beginning of its service life but you will need to lower these theoretical capacities to accommodate age. I can try finding out what the depreciation percentage is if you like? So for example, nearly 20 years in for Rita, it is not reasonable to expect it to be hitting that when it is aging. This is why coasters then end up on kill-lists - because it is no longer economical to run them. The GP often forget this factor when using their subjective view of operations and is also why Wickerman can plough trains out while Rita limps in... Wickerman will depreciate over the years starting from, around 2023. You can sorta see this in action already. Th13teen opened with a higher than theoretical capacity of 1440 per hour - topping 1600 in some calculations - compared to the 1210 you had on your visit. Yes, your visit was running 3 fewer rows, but on opening the checks would have been longer, which would essentially cancel each other out to an extent.
These are some really interesting points. I hadn't thought about the factor of aging, though I must ask, is this something you know to be true or have theorised? I can appreciate the idea of not operating a ride as efficiently to reduce the number of dispatches and increase its lifespan. But when you look at something like Nemesis, 27 years old this year, averaging 86% I question the validity of the assumption. Perhaps that's due to a quality ride system though? On the topic of 13, where did you hear about these alternative theoretical throughputs? Surely you're governed by how fast the drop track can reset itself? At least 25 seconds of that would be taken by the first train entering and the drop sequence occuring, but I imagine resetting takes a while too.
@@coasterbot I'm working with the Continuous Improvement department on something that would involve these very calculations and considerations. I can see if there is a formula that I can get hold of to assist with this? There are more factors than maintenance at play... but specifically speaking about maintenance and depreciation I would say that Nemesis hasn't declined in operations as much as Rita has because there is much less that can go wrong with Nemesis in comparison. Nemesis is a fairly easy-going coaster to maintain. She isn't as needy.. Your comment about it alternating between 60 and 100 seconds is spot on. The dispatchers will aim to have the next train leaving as the previous one arrives to average it out. This assists with off-setting the aging factor because they can dispatch every 100 seconds if they need to and still hit the top end of "theoretical". Similar principle for Swarm at Thorpe too. Internally we call it "longer leg effect" because operations are like walking with one leg longer than the other - where dispatches aren't always even because of the length of time to load is shorter than the ride time is. But this averaging masks the aging decline somewhat. For the Th13teen stuff, this is purely anecdotal based on the CoasterForce interview with John Wardley on opening day where he cited a throughput of around 1600 against theoretical of 1200.
Your work all sounds super interesting! If you have the formula I'd love to hear it. I'd be interested to know more about what you do at Merlin too, it sounds like a job that I would get along with. That makes sense. The trains are pretty quick to load, so as long as the drop track can reset in time it seems plausible. :)
I have a lot of complaints about Merlin, but typically operations have always been decent - not amazing, but decent. Great analysis, and great to see you measuring capacity properly by taking an average at a specific point, too.
Helllo There, this is interesting to know, thank you for giving us your perspective on this, it's much appreciated. Cheers Peter :) p.s. the operations are pretty decent at Alton Towers, it will be great for you to do a comparison video of different operations including Paultons Park, Legoland, Paultons Park, Flamingo Land, Oakwood Theme Park, Thorpe Park Resort, Blackpool Pleasure Beach and Chessington World of Adventures etc.
it takes wickerman 15 min to move a train from one track to another galactica 25 seconds and nemysis 5 mins for examle as the smiler would take 15 mins
That, and they also found running 5 made little difference from 4 as it always had a train stacking on the brake run on 5, so they only bought one new train after the incident
Opperations can also be slown down by new computer systems. Python at Efteling was able to power through the guest before its renovation. Now with a new ride system it is hammerd down alot. It now takes around 40 second to get a train in te station from the trimbrakes, and before around 10 a 20 seconds. The max trains I was able to send out was 37 of 38. Before te renovation it was around 45. Manualy breaking the trains is realy missed by all opperators. But still in the park, Python is a people eater. Joris en de Draak should be king but the opperations are realy bad. Vogelrok and Max en Moritz are the true people eating coasters at Efteling
And how can we, international viewers, help you? How many measures do you need for any given coaster and how can we send it to you? I think I can give you Madrid parks data without much problems.
I'd love for you to help, if you have an instagram or facebook account send a message to me via that and we can discuss it further. Otherwise email me at contact@coasterbot.com - Thanks! :)
How is the practical experience at the park? I look a lot at the queue-times webpage and even on quiet days the average queue times for the more popular rides are easily in the 30-40 min range which is kind of outrageous compared to other parks, especially given they have quite a big range of attractions and the operations according to your video are decent, plus there are reports of frequent ride break downs. I am asking because Alton Towers is on my bucket list, but if I get as good as nothing done for a big amount of money (tickets, traveling, accomodation) I'd rather stay away...
That's a good question. If you visit mid-week avoiding the summer season the queues are fairly short. The park is big and there are quite a few rides. If you want to make the most of it, and haven't been before, I'd recommend two days at the park
I went in 2020 during the summer and i must say for a brand new ride and a busier park capacity than i expected, wickerman's line moved surprisingly fast! I think the estimate was 90mins, but we were constantly moving and i definitely fot on much sooner than the estimate
Brilliant. Be interesting to have data updated weekly using an app and reporting by enthusiasts. You could have a league table. Be interesting to see what patterns emerge. Parks, suppliers age etc. I think the customers leaving the platform after the ride could be a significant factor
Bad News: Taylor did it already. Good news: not for Alton Towers. Also, he couldn't figure out the operations of Superman, a POV of ride taken from someone else and him recording the spike to spike duration and subtracting one from the other he could have figured out operations from that ride. You're smarter than him and also could have figured that out for yourself, like I did (the idea, not the execution; the ride was down when I visited SFMM anyway). I personally found The Smiler To be the best coaster in the park and possibly in all of the U.K, since Icon at Blackpool is inferior to Helix, but the Smiler is inferior to none. In conclusion I'd like to thank you for having put in the effort to create this video.
@@coasterbot Yeah, but you kick his ass. I know it's not supposed to be a competition, even if you're too kind to admit it; you provide operation times without gimmicks and excuses.But Taylor: not so much. You're also smart where T.B is stupid. What else do I have to say? Forget him. He's got some good coaster reviews, but a broken clock is right twice a day, (4 times if it's spoiled. ;) ) Don't go down with the Titanic; I beg of you; you're doing fine without him. GET OUT NOW while you still can. AMEN. (sorry, I was just clearing my throat; I meant to say AHEM! I'm an atheist, not defined by what I don't believe in, whether it's god or Taylor. My bad. ;) Thanks for the great content, Harry!
I’ve counted dispatches on Nemesis in 5 minutes, multiplied that by 12 and clocked it at being capable of 1,536 riders per hour, assuming no hold ups and every seat filled - could potentially push 1600 with no stacking for the whole hour
I was suprised by the wickerman out of all the coasters. When at full capacity thirteen eats the queues well i think. Ive queued right at the entrance and slowly walked the full queue onto the ride in about 40 mins pre covid days.
That's a nice new format for videos. For me personally it's still a mild shock, that most rollercoasters don't exceed the 1000 riders per hour, when there are rollercoasters like Big Thunder Mountain at DLP with theoretical capacities beyond 2400 riders per hour.
It's interesting but is a mild shock? We're talking about Disney, host to the most popular theme parks on earth. It makes sense that these places have rides with 2/3 times the capacity of more traditional theme parks honestly :)
@@coasterbot of course the capacity is way lower than on Disney's rollercoasters. But still Alton Towers is in the top 10 of the biggest themeparks in Europe, so I would have guessed differently. I would have guessed coasters like The Smiler or Wickerman to reach 1200. I've operated myself rollercoasters with around 700 to 800 riders per hour with only a second colleague and two train ops.
@@coasterbot When I went just a few weeks ago, the queues were an hour to 2 all day, from 10am to 8pm. And it was a Wednesday. Outside of school holidays.
13 has the highest throughput on here but in reality there’s only 10 people per train now and 4 of them are from the disabled queue then add fast track it’s just stupid
Really interesting video! I like these data heavy ones. However the topic of operations is quite difficult to discuss. All you need is a few more or less motivated staff members and the whole picture can change. We went to Tripsdrill yesterday and one of the staff members at Hals über Kopf was basically running around the train, checking restraints in record time because he was so into it 😂 I'm sure that coaster would've smashed its load factor that day 😎
I bloody love data. Well done! Comparing clones would be a true comparison of operations….
Thanks! You're right that would be super interesting! :)
loved this video, can’t wait for the thorpe park version!
Thanks! :)
This makes want to see a redo of US park operations videos. Taylor's "Train dispatched every x seconds" and leaving it at that is no longer cutting it lol
Now this kind of video is what I love to see. This sounds like the beginning of a massive global effort to gather data on rides. Or at least I’d love to see it and would help with my home parks. You could get a lot of data with everyone spread out, though the US parks are especially bad right now due to massive staffing shortages. Tatsu at SFMM is down 2 staff on the restraint checks so the dispatches are probably pushing 3 minutes or more. Much worse than what Galactica seems to be doing.
We've had quite a few people message saying they'd be happy to collect some data, which is awesome. :)
Gotta say Oblivion always felt the fastest to me in that I never actively queued. I always felt like I was moving even during busy times and only actively stopped once I was pretty much at the ride building.
The Smiler even when I was able to use Single Rider queues always took what felt like eternity to ride on. So I just stopped riding on it.
Two rides on smiler on Sat 3 Jun (half term) 2023, got on both times within 5 mins and there were less than 5 people in front, walked straight into station
This is some quality nerd stuff, I love it, also explained really well!
Thanks Stefan! :)
As a former ride op and teamleader at Europa - Park & Walibi Holland its great to see a video that goes so in dept about operations! Just a fun fact; at Condor at Walibi Holland we got a capacity of 709 riders per hour. Theoretically its 640 per hour :) best we ever did that year was a 15 second dispatch! Getting the team highly motivated and the guests involved (aka turning it into a game of sorts) is the key to succes!
A 15 second dispatch is very impressive! :)
That's awesome!
I would love to help you with this if you want! I can get the Holiday World rides.
Hi Aleks that would be fantastic! I mis-clicked on your Instagram message and deleted it by accident. Can you message me on there again and we can discuss it further? Thanks :)
I have that exact calculator in the thumbnail!
Me too!
So does every kid in Britain attending high school
Legit
"However, Alton Towers can only run up to four trains on The Smiler"
OOF.
Does anyone know why this is? I'm assuming something changed after the accident but I might be wrong.
@@genericaccount7422 iirc it's partly due to the accident (I'm not sure if they had 5 trains during any other season, but they definitely added a 5th train on that day which is the train that was crashed into) but also I'm pretty sure smiler only has 5 block sections, and a coaster needs 3 block sections for 2 trains (a spare is needed for safety purposes) so 5 trains wouldn't be viable when there are 5 block sections
Again, this is based on memory from a few years ago, so I'd recommend checking out a video explaining block sections cuz I think that's where I got this info from
This was super interesting! My preditcion for thorpe park is that swarm will be the highest, with saw being the lowest
I'm glad you think so! Great prediction, you'll find out if you're right soon :)
6:05 The Music: *Sings The Laughs as the park can run 4 trains*
Loved this, so interesting.
The music is so ominous, edge of the seat stuff 😬
Thanks man!
Great video. Really interesting, the contrast between how ambitious some manufacturers are about their theoretical capacity!
Some really superb footage throughout as well.
Thanks Andrew! I couldn't agree more actually :)
Now The Smiler is running 5 trains again on occasion making a higher throughput
This thumbnail took me back to 2015
Hell yeah
I found this fascinating. I used to work at Walt Disney World, where I ran 4 separate attractions, and was even an efficiency coach at one at times, where it was my job to ensure we hit our hourly capacity numbers! Disney’s numbers… I won’t say what they are… but they were much higher haha.
I am excited to see future videos in this series!
I wouldn't expect anything more. Places like MK at Disney World have close to 10 times the attendance figures of Alton Towers. I'd expect the more popular Disney rides to be maintaining 2000 as a minimum.
I would be interested in knowing what numbers you were managing. Also, did you count people rather than trains? Obviously my assumption is every train is completely full, whereas I imagine parks have detailed throughput figures counting the exact number of people. :)
This was certainly very interesting I dont normally think about this if I see a ride I want to do and it has a decent wait time I go for it 😁
Yeah, I know what you mean. I'm just a nerd! ;)
An excellent video! Loved it!
Thanks!
If I had an Oblivion clone at my park, I would be pushing for all 7 to operate as long as they were not needing maintenance.
Get the problem with trains stacking when you have all 7 on though? Wouldn’t be fun being stuck on the brake run in this heat
@@peedlejaydle it wouldn’t really benefit from being on all 7 as all the shuttles would be stacked however on my Alton towers visit in June 2021, oblivion was on 6 shuttles and 2 stations and the queue was advertised an hour and we waited no more than 25 mins
Much better than the Coaster Studios ones lol (don't tell Taylor!)
I'm willing to bet that once this series comes to an end, Europapark will be on top. Never visited a park with quicker operations. Apparently a 45min wait is considered obscene over there. Visited mid-july and never waited more than 30 min.
I'd love to do this for Europa Park, it'd be extremely interesting!
When I went to Alton Towers a few weeks ago, only one Galactica station was in use.
That thumbnail though
Alton Towers has Good Operations to keep the park going! 👍 By the way, I was hoping you should do Thorpe Park next for your next video!
We just went to Thorpe Park, so expect one of these operations videos from there soon :)
Great video, Harry; really interesting to see the real world throughputs these rides get! I did some throughput timing of my own at Alton on my last visit, and I did get some different readings to you; for Wicker Man, I got 1059pph, which is higher than your reading of 973pph, and I also clocked Oblivion at 1156pph, which is a fair bit higher than your 897pph. On the flip side, I got a far lower Thirteen reading of 957pph, which is way lower than your 1210pph. I think that just shows that operations can vary a fair bit, if nothing else!
Out of interest, how did you calculate the theoretical throughput of rides that had less trains than their full capacity (e.g. Smiler was 985 instead of 1200 and Oblivion was 1108 instead of 1900)?
Also, if you’re wanting to do more videos like this, I’d recommend an app named Dispatch Timer. It makes timing these things very easy, and is free to download on the App Store!
Thanks!
As you saw it's all relative to that one experience on the day. Realistically it'd be great to get multiple readings across multiple days. How many readings did you take usually to create an average? We aimed for about 10. I also removed readings that were 2 standard deviations away from the mean, putting this down to guests unnecessary extending dispatch times.
To determine the throughput on less trains I measured the time it takes one train to navigate the circuit. You can then use the theorectical dispatch time to see how long it would take to dispatch all your trains. For example, the smiler on 4 trains should theorectically dispatch all 4 with about 10/20 seconds or so to spare before train 1 returns back into the station. Using this you can generate a new throughput which adjusts for this time where theorectically nothing is happening.
I've heard about that app. I like to have all of the individual readings though so I can do some additional analysis (like finding the standard deviation). But for most cases that app works great :)
@@coasterbot Ah right; cheers, Harry!
I used an average of 5 to calculate my throughputs in the vast majority of cases. I guess your rule of 10 might be slightly more accurate, as more data is always better, but I thought that 5 was a nice rule of thumb to go for, as I sometimes didn’t have the time to calculate 10 dependant on how long the queue was.
It's a time consuming process. We actually watched most of the rides go round for 15/20 minutes capturing dispatch times. No measure is really perfect unless you take huge amount of readings across multiple days of the year, but sadly we don't have time to do that! Ha ha :)
@@coasterbot You still managed to get enough readings to make a great video!
I’ll be intrigued to see what your readings unveil for parks where the ride throughputs typically aren’t as high as Alton’s, like Blackpool Pleasure Beach or Chessington. Or basically any other non-Alton park in the UK, to be honest.
“Theme parks focus on safety as a number 1 priority, and will not speed up during busy times”
Me:WHAT ABOUT SMILER 2015.
Would love you guys to do vids like these in some parks around Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany aswell
We'd love to do that too!
Would love to see more of these, i always thought The Smiler would be a queue eater, just shows!!
There will be more! :)
The biggest factor that changes these numbers are bigger guests who delay the dispatch because they can’t fit in the restraint. All ride ops know the pain of getting a 2:30 minute dispatch because a larger person has to leave.
Also, Oblivion can run 7 trains? That’s insane! That ride is so short I thought it was a 2, maybe 3 train ride.
First
You have absolutely shat on Coaster Studios here. Well done chap!
ha ha I didn't mean to
You knew what you were doing putting Icon as the first point of comparison. Icon deserves it's reputation as the gold standard for operations in the U.K. You're always queing out the door for it, but you're on it 20 minutes later every time. The park staff are wizards.
If you do revisit this concept at Towers though, I would love to see estimations for the Mine Train. I feel my soul leave my body any time I have to queue for that ride. Entire planets are birthed, grown to maturity and die out whilst i'm still stuck waiting to ride.
Dude it literally takes 25 minutes from the entrance of the ride to get on it
Icon is definitely going to be an interesting one to time!
Yeah I think I'll measure the other bigger coasters on my next visit :)
Very interesting Harry . Proof they nemesis is the best in whatever category it’s in .😉.
You forgot roller disco 🤣🤣🧱👍🏽
Thanks! I think we left that one out on purpose ;)
@@coasterbot 😆😆🧱👍🏽
love it
13 was awful when i went, so was galactica. The Smiler and Rita were great! It's so different depending on the day and everything else . I loved this video so much!
Your clip in the intro of Speed at Oakwood sent me back in time. Used to be a ride op there. Honestly, nevermind efficiency, any time a ride makes it back in to it's station with all it's wheels still attached and no missing passengers is a miracle. That place is awful.
Why can I picture this exact type of analysis for a couple going on a date and how long it takes to get from first to second base and so on. Then the voice over continues, now his expectations were..... fill in the blank, but his actual output of reaching that goal was in fact this long. And on it goes. Not exactly hilarious stuff, but great fun and silliness. Maybe on this channel on April Fools Day next year? Grab your date and Coaster Bot will grab his calculator! Better watch out all you Ritas! He's watching you.
God now that would be something ha ha
They need to bring back those covid staff, I yesterday operations were TRASHHHHH. Oblivion was only running one load station and only dispatching a train every 3 minutes, we had immense stacking, 3 trains all piled up on the two break runs waiting for the 4th to unload. Such a mess.
And as you may have heard, Nemesis has been running at half capaciry, only loading the front half of each train, which was a nightmare for queue times and not getting an intense back row ride. Smiler queue usually moves steadily but it breaks down so often. The best operations of the day was Airlactica, and we got a back row ride too which shocked me with it's intensity (compared to the rest of the train)
Interesting video. My question is this; do the dispatch intervals compiled here include the amount of time that it takes the next train to enter the station upon the incumbent train dispatching? I would assume thats the case in this video. The Coaster Studios dispatch series focuses more on how quickly operators could operate a ride rather than the resulting attraction capacity. They're enjoyable, but not intended for accurate calculations. This video is an interesting take on capacity though that I've not seen online, I applaud the math here.
He said it did at the beginning of the video didn't he?
@@TheRadioAteMyTV I'm dumb
Thanks for watching :)
0:00 Why Has Nemesis Got NO wheel covers on!?
No clue
That is a nice way to compare the operation time! I would love to see parks in Germany and in the Netherlands!
Thanks I'm glad you think so! I'd love to see that too :)
I really like the series, but IMO this video was about 3/4 minutes longer than it needed to be. Maybe make it more concise but if people prefer this then I'll defo keep watching anyway ')
Thanks! I'd be interested to hear what specifically you'd cut out. You could take out the brief one line about each ride, or the explanation of how to measure the capacity of a roller coaster, but both add value I think?
@@coasterbot I'd defo take out the measurement methods, maybe justified for the first video but if it becomes a series then less so. Max 1 minute per ride, especially when parks contain >5 major coasters. Also, the introduction could be shorter than 1:30 :)
Cool video !
Thanks!
Eat this Taylor!
Very interesting...
I was there this past weekend and found them to be incredibly efficient. Great park, has always been consistently impressive.
Awesome to hear, I'm glad you had a great time! :)
Thumbnail 😫😖
What’s your opinion on the GP?
Do one of those next time you visit Liseberg!
Will do! :)
Galactica operations are awful which we know anyway went Monday queue board was 50 minutes actual wait was 2 hours 15 minutes wasted half our day and it didn't even break down during that time operations were just slower than normal. Great video
To be fair, Rita breaks down very often - usually while you're queueing for it. So the actual PPH is even lower
0:17 Does that include Action Park? Because... You know.
I wish Rita was like stealth, always loaded with trains to send out, way way shorter queues than Rita it’s just quicker and you could say, better than Rita. But I love both coasters none the less
I really liked how when I was watching the smiler two trains would go up the lift hills at the same time and the train going up the sloped one reached the top first meaning it'd wiz past the one still going up the vertical one
Such an interesting series idea... There is one thing you've potentially missed out here.. The depreciation factor. You can't push an older coaster to hit theoretical capacity because if you do, they would fall apart (not literally, of course) - but you would risk more mechanical breakdowns or stoppages than if you took it slightly easier on the operations. So, your theoretical capacities are good as estimates when the coaster is in the beginning of its service life but you will need to lower these theoretical capacities to accommodate age. I can try finding out what the depreciation percentage is if you like? So for example, nearly 20 years in for Rita, it is not reasonable to expect it to be hitting that when it is aging. This is why coasters then end up on kill-lists - because it is no longer economical to run them.
The GP often forget this factor when using their subjective view of operations and is also why Wickerman can plough trains out while Rita limps in... Wickerman will depreciate over the years starting from, around 2023.
You can sorta see this in action already. Th13teen opened with a higher than theoretical capacity of 1440 per hour - topping 1600 in some calculations - compared to the 1210 you had on your visit. Yes, your visit was running 3 fewer rows, but on opening the checks would have been longer, which would essentially cancel each other out to an extent.
These are some really interesting points. I hadn't thought about the factor of aging, though I must ask, is this something you know to be true or have theorised? I can appreciate the idea of not operating a ride as efficiently to reduce the number of dispatches and increase its lifespan. But when you look at something like Nemesis, 27 years old this year, averaging 86% I question the validity of the assumption. Perhaps that's due to a quality ride system though?
On the topic of 13, where did you hear about these alternative theoretical throughputs? Surely you're governed by how fast the drop track can reset itself? At least 25 seconds of that would be taken by the first train entering and the drop sequence occuring, but I imagine resetting takes a while too.
@@coasterbot I'm working with the Continuous Improvement department on something that would involve these very calculations and considerations. I can see if there is a formula that I can get hold of to assist with this? There are more factors than maintenance at play... but specifically speaking about maintenance and depreciation I would say that Nemesis hasn't declined in operations as much as Rita has because there is much less that can go wrong with Nemesis in comparison. Nemesis is a fairly easy-going coaster to maintain. She isn't as needy.. Your comment about it alternating between 60 and 100 seconds is spot on. The dispatchers will aim to have the next train leaving as the previous one arrives to average it out. This assists with off-setting the aging factor because they can dispatch every 100 seconds if they need to and still hit the top end of "theoretical". Similar principle for Swarm at Thorpe too. Internally we call it "longer leg effect" because operations are like walking with one leg longer than the other - where dispatches aren't always even because of the length of time to load is shorter than the ride time is. But this averaging masks the aging decline somewhat.
For the Th13teen stuff, this is purely anecdotal based on the CoasterForce interview with John Wardley on opening day where he cited a throughput of around 1600 against theoretical of 1200.
Your work all sounds super interesting! If you have the formula I'd love to hear it. I'd be interested to know more about what you do at Merlin too, it sounds like a job that I would get along with.
That makes sense. The trains are pretty quick to load, so as long as the drop track can reset in time it seems plausible. :)
l love but hate the smiler and thirteen it’s so scary with the drop and black at the end (sorry if l gave spoilers :( )
I have a lot of complaints about Merlin, but typically operations have always been decent - not amazing, but decent. Great analysis, and great to see you measuring capacity properly by taking an average at a specific point, too.
I think it depends on the park. Alton Towers have great operations on *most* of the rides, whereas I find other merlin parks to be less consistent.
this happens because the 4th is in the scrapyard and i have a seat btw oblivion has a small que and usualy 3 stations one is secret and has 5 trains
Helllo There, this is interesting to know, thank you for giving us your perspective on this, it's much appreciated. Cheers Peter :) p.s. the operations are pretty decent at Alton Towers, it will be great for you to do a comparison video of different operations including Paultons Park, Legoland, Paultons Park, Flamingo Land, Oakwood Theme Park, Thorpe Park Resort, Blackpool Pleasure Beach and Chessington World of Adventures etc.
We're hoping to compare more parks in the future, even ones outside of the UK :)
@@coasterbot Hello There, that sounds great, I look forward to it, thank you for doing this. Cheers Peter :-)
most seats are usualy empty and nemy has 3 or 4 trains and i mean it was lockdown and we had 2 less workers on each ride
it takes wickerman 15 min to move a train from one track to another galactica 25 seconds and nemysis 5 mins for examle as the smiler would take 15 mins
Not me not knowing what a single thing means but still watching because it’s interesting
Are the operations of the Smiler lower due to fewer trains since the accident?
That, and they also found running 5 made little difference from 4 as it always had a train stacking on the brake run on 5, so they only bought one new train after the incident
Super interesting video!! Looking forward to more ❤️
Thanks man! :)
I never knew you could type fast or slow on a calculator!!!!
Can’t wait for Thorpe park very interesting data
rita actualy has 4 trains and sometimes it is a diferent worker lol
Wow this was interesting
Thanks I'm glad you think so! :)
Duelling on the Smiler? You’re not kidding
Opperations can also be slown down by new computer systems. Python at Efteling was able to power through the guest before its renovation. Now with a new ride system it is hammerd down alot. It now takes around 40 second to get a train in te station from the trimbrakes, and before around 10 a 20 seconds. The max trains I was able to send out was 37 of 38. Before te renovation it was around 45. Manualy breaking the trains is realy missed by all opperators.
But still in the park, Python is a people eater. Joris en de Draak should be king but the opperations are realy bad. Vogelrok and Max en Moritz are the true people eating coasters at Efteling
That's really interesting actually! I'd love to do this video for the Efteling :)
I would love to see this video redone after covid precautions are dropped to see how the pandemic affected dispatch times
Whenever that will be.
Me too!
And how can we, international viewers, help you? How many measures do you need for any given coaster and how can we send it to you? I think I can give you Madrid parks data without much problems.
I'd love for you to help, if you have an instagram or facebook account send a message to me via that and we can discuss it further. Otherwise email me at contact@coasterbot.com - Thanks! :)
These numbers must be unrealistic. They don't match the dispatch times of the RCT series.
Ha ha I love it
How is the practical experience at the park? I look a lot at the queue-times webpage and even on quiet days the average queue times for the more popular rides are easily in the 30-40 min range which is kind of outrageous compared to other parks, especially given they have quite a big range of attractions and the operations according to your video are decent, plus there are reports of frequent ride break downs.
I am asking because Alton Towers is on my bucket list, but if I get as good as nothing done for a big amount of money (tickets, traveling, accomodation) I'd rather stay away...
That's a good question. If you visit mid-week avoiding the summer season the queues are fairly short. The park is big and there are quite a few rides. If you want to make the most of it, and haven't been before, I'd recommend two days at the park
@@coasterbot thanks mate, sounds good!
Only problem, Rita could be quicker but it has the launch countdown. 😲
You missed out spinball whizzer
Cool video and graphics! But bum that weird music :P
Hey Harry, if you want I would be interested in providing you figures for Walibi Belgium. Feel free to hmu
I'd be really interested! If you could give me a message on Instagram, or email us at contact@coasterbot.com that would be awesome :)
I went in 2020 during the summer and i must say for a brand new ride and a busier park capacity than i expected, wickerman's line moved surprisingly fast! I think the estimate was 90mins, but we were constantly moving and i definitely fot on much sooner than the estimate
Brilliant. Be interesting to have data updated weekly using an app and reporting by enthusiasts. You could have a league table. Be interesting to see what patterns emerge. Parks, suppliers age etc. I think the customers leaving the platform after the ride could be a significant factor
Nice video 👍
Thanks!
When I went on Rita I was sat on the rollercoaster for 5-10minuets at the start because of a “technical problem”
That's frustrating, but it does happen
@@coasterbot the operator was on 2 phones at once 😭
@@coasterbot and scary because I don’t like rollercoasters and it was the first time I had been on one
I find the total disconnect between the numbers and the heights of the bars upsetting.
Yeah, the bars are based on the dispatch time, not the capacity of the ride. I'll swap them around for the next video in this series :)
My mum liked this (she told me to tell you)
Again, that thumbnail though...
why did swarm sneak in there 😭
Bad News: Taylor did it already. Good news: not for Alton Towers. Also, he couldn't figure out the operations of Superman, a POV of ride taken from someone else and him recording the spike to spike duration and subtracting one from the other he could have figured out operations from that ride. You're smarter than him and also could have figured that out for yourself, like I did (the idea, not the execution; the ride was down when I visited SFMM anyway). I personally found The Smiler To be the best coaster in the park and possibly in all of the U.K, since Icon at Blackpool is inferior to Helix, but the Smiler is inferior to none. In conclusion I'd like to thank you for having put in the effort to create this video.
Taylor has done it, but the videos are very different in reality. Thanks for watching :)
@@coasterbot Yeah, but you kick his ass. I know it's not supposed to be a competition, even if you're too kind to admit it; you provide operation times without gimmicks and excuses.But Taylor: not so much. You're also smart where T.B is stupid. What else do I have to say? Forget him. He's got some good coaster reviews, but a broken clock is right twice a day, (4 times if it's spoiled. ;) )
Don't go down with the Titanic; I beg of you; you're doing fine without him. GET OUT NOW while you still can. AMEN. (sorry, I was just clearing my throat; I meant to say AHEM! I'm an atheist, not defined by what I don't believe in, whether it's god or Taylor. My bad. ;) Thanks for the great content, Harry!
Intamin are known to overstate their theoretical capacities.
Very true!
But we can dream 😂
I’ve counted dispatches on Nemesis in 5 minutes, multiplied that by 12 and clocked it at being capable of 1,536 riders per hour, assuming no hold ups and every seat filled - could potentially push 1600 with no stacking for the whole hour
That's awesome, they must have been firing the trains out! :)
Alton towers had One of the fastest op i have seen except for that minetrain for some reason they needed 3 people together to put down the same bar
I was suprised by the wickerman out of all the coasters. When at full capacity thirteen eats the queues well i think. Ive queued right at the entrance and slowly walked the full queue onto the ride in about 40 mins pre covid days.
13 is pretty popular too, so it's good it can get through people quickly :)
@@coasterbot yup :)
That's a nice new format for videos. For me personally it's still a mild shock, that most rollercoasters don't exceed the 1000 riders per hour, when there are rollercoasters like Big Thunder Mountain at DLP with theoretical capacities beyond 2400 riders per hour.
It's interesting but is a mild shock? We're talking about Disney, host to the most popular theme parks on earth. It makes sense that these places have rides with 2/3 times the capacity of more traditional theme parks honestly :)
@@coasterbot of course the capacity is way lower than on Disney's rollercoasters. But still Alton Towers is in the top 10 of the biggest themeparks in Europe, so I would have guessed differently. I would have guessed coasters like The Smiler or Wickerman to reach 1200. I've operated myself rollercoasters with around 700 to 800 riders per hour with only a second colleague and two train ops.
I don't understand why Alton has terrible queues though, compared with many other theme parks.
Terrible in what way, they're design? I don't find most of the queues to be that bad.
@@coasterbot When I went just a few weeks ago, the queues were an hour to 2 all day, from 10am to 8pm. And it was a Wednesday. Outside of school holidays.
Once 13 broke down on me
Loved this video! Can't wait to see more
Thanks, that means a lot :)
'Europa Park', hold my beer....
True
5:50 I guess The Smiler will always continue to hold the record as the first 14 looping roller coaster 😉 but we all know what you meant!
Oops ha ha ;)
13 has the highest throughput on here but in reality there’s only 10 people per train now and 4 of them are from the disabled queue then add fast track it’s just stupid
Really interesting video! I like these data heavy ones.
However the topic of operations is quite difficult to discuss. All you need is a few more or less motivated staff members and the whole picture can change.
We went to Tripsdrill yesterday and one of the staff members at Hals über Kopf was basically running around the train, checking restraints in record time because he was so into it 😂
I'm sure that coaster would've smashed its load factor that day 😎
Thanks for the kind words. That's very true, some ops are fantastic! :)