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How do they figure out queue times?

The most accurate system would be to count people in and out of the queue to keep track of how many people are waiting and an approximate main Q throughput. I think Phantasialand already have a similar system, though I don't know the full details.
 
John said:
The most accurate system would be to count people in and out of the queue to keep track of how many people are waiting and an approximate main Q throughput. I think Phantasialand already have a similar system, though I don't know the full details.
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All you need to do know is how many people in the queue,how many on each train and how long between dispatches.
All easily automated.

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Only if you know how many on the train got there from the main Q. Could be anywhere from 0-100%
 
...and monitor exit/RAP where relevant. Easier just to monitor the number of people passing merge from the main Q (Nemesis excepted as merge moves). If you're counting people in you can probably count them out too.
 
When I had friends who were ride hosts only a couple years back, it was a case of..

•Every hour the ride op may or may not remember to look at the queue for an update
•Ride op will ask host "Whatdya think?"
•Ride host will glance at where the end of the queue is, and guess "Ooh about 20 mins"
•Ride op will call control and tell them to update their queuetime board
•Guests will regularly look at the queue time board and ask "Is that really __ mins?" because the times were trusted by nobody anyway.
•Host says "No its more like ____ now" because the previous update often didn't go through.
•Operator will call control again to remind them to update
•Hosts would then swap positions and the new host would have a completely different guess of how long the queue is from the same point.

Now I have no idea what it was like at Alton Towers but these seemed to be the standard and the system that was used.

I think somebody realised it was ridic so invested in the BLIP / BLE system, which gets overrided every day due to being inaccurate, going back to the "Oyup looks more like ___ mins now" system.
 
If you recorded when someone enters the que, then when they exit. In the station for example. You would get an exact time each person has spent in the que, then calculate an average que time from that.

If you walked into a full que and was recorded by a system, maybe even something as simple as a pressure pad, the software would already know exactly how many people are in the que as it would have recorded them entering, when the 100th person to enter the que gets to the end, the system would know it is that exact person as 99 other people would have been recorded exiting the que. Thus giving a pretty exact time that specific person has been in the que for. You could then work out the average time spent from all the people in the que to give an approximate que time. T

The beauty and elegance of an algorithm like this is that along as you are just trying to give a que time for the main que. The merge point does not need to be monitored at all. As a very acurate que time can be given without monitoring it. You just need to monitor people entering the merge que.

Something like this would probably never be implemented but it is a good thought experiment, especially when you are a software engineer.
 
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I don’t know why they don’t stick an rfid tag and gps locator to everyone who enters Park so they can track of each and every person.
100% queue time accuracy
 
An easier solution I think would be to have turnstiles at the very entrance of rides and the exit of the ride or like BPB have riders scan their wristbands. I think RFID tags would be a total nightmare! You’d have people who’d lose theirs, forget to give them back, oppose to wearing them etc.


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I think a pressure pad would work better. Just like what traffic lights and car park barriers have underneath the tarmac.
 
Not only that but people, particularly in groups, could walk over the pad at a time giving inaccurate readings


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Perhaps the question now should be: are queue times relevant? And is it a worthwhile investment for Alton Towers to upgrade to more accurate system?


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cptcliff said:
Perhaps the question now should be: are queue times relevant? And is it a worthwhile investment for Alton Towers to upgrade to more accurate system?


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Not really.

The general assumption consists of:

“Cor **** that”

Walk to another queue:

“Jesus Christ, that’s it!”

Walk to Guest services:

“DAMN IT”
 
cptcliff said:
Perhaps the question now should be: are queue times relevant? And is it a worthwhile investment for Alton Towers to upgrade to more accurate system?


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One without the passwords in public view would be nice.

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