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Ride Availability/Operations 2022-24

Got to remember we've gone from select rides being open and ready to go for ERT at 9am, to rides not even opening at 10am as tech services struggle to get around and complete pre opening checks. That alone is bad enough without the constant ride downtimes throughout the day too.

Although it doesn't really go back far enough to compare, if you hop on over to Queue Times and take a look at the historical opening data particularly for coasters, you can see the hefty downtime that some rides have had pretty much every day this year. Sure some rides are temperamental, but I don't remember seeing the sheer frequency and prevalence of ride closures being as bad as they have been in recent years - and it's only got progressively worse.
 
Ride availability never used to be this bad at Alton Towers. It used to be Thorpe Park that we would all bemoan for their god awful availability, it was always pretty good at Towers.

There are of course many different factors. I am not sure of this but I suspect there are less people in tech services these days, procedures have changed (especially post-2016), getting hold of parts has become more challenging. And that means like so many of the problems at Alton Towers, this is not going to be a quick overnight fix.
 
Rob said:
Ride availability never used to be this bad at Alton Towers. It used to be Thorpe Park that we would all bemoan for their god awful availability, it was always pretty good at Towers.

There are of course many different factors. I am not sure of this but I suspect there are less people in tech services these days, procedures have changed (especially post-2016), getting hold of parts has become more challenging. And that means like so many of the problems at Alton Towers, this is not going to be a quick overnight fix.
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Are there also more sensors, checks and less leeway since The Smiler crash? Not suggesting that mechanical H&S was less paramount pre-Smiler, but more that it's now about doubling down on all checks and being more cautious.

Would there also be a significant increase in shut downs and evacs because of phone or filming usage? The meteoric rise in social media platforms, cameras and phones becoming smaller, and generally less social anxiety about filming every moment of every day, leading people to not pay attention to the "mobile phones are strictly prohibited".

I know the data isn't available, but it would be interesting to see why ride closures are being triggered and the significant downtime this season.
 
I haven't spent much time at the park in recent years, so a lot of this analysis is anecdotal and based on reports here, but I can attest that ride breakdowns and technical issues were previously largely centred on whatever new bit of tech had just opened. Oblivion and Air were closed or evacuated so much in 1998 and 2002 that it became a sort of running joke in the media. In spite of this, it felt like everything else largely ran like clockwork, and efficiently. The park is now in a position in which it still has an enviable portfolio of heavy-hitter rides, but no real support, with many attractions beginning to show their age.
 
Craig said:
Got to remember we've gone from select rides being open and ready to go for ERT at 9am, to rides not even opening at 10am as tech services struggle to get around and complete pre opening checks. That alone is bad enough without the constant ride downtimes throughout the day too.

Although it doesn't really go back far enough to compare, if you hop on over to Queue Times and take a look at the historical opening data particularly for coasters, you can see the hefty downtime that some rides have had pretty much every day this year. Sure some rides are temperamental, but I don't remember seeing the sheer frequency and prevalence of ride closures being as bad as they have been in recent years - and it's only got progressively worse.
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Rides are ageing, they are also increasingly in complexity. The difference between Corkscrew and 13 must be night and day with moving parts, sensors and computer systems etc.

It’s not an excuse but it would perhaps necessitate the need for an even bigger tech team than what has ever been currently operating at Towers. Increases in health and safety must also play a part.

The downtime this year has been shocking. You shouldn’t be going to a theme park and wondering what is going to be broken or operating each time. If it was pay per ride I am sure you would see an increase in up time available.

It’s not just Alton, all the Merlin parks suffer with the same issues. Chessington have failed to fix an off the shelf rollercoaster in 18 months of down time. The other rides are also up and down like a yo-yo.

I wonder if this all stems from the fact all the parks operate on 35 year leases and they are effectively being bled dry by it. Similar situation to when football clubs don’t own the ground they play in.
 
Blackhole_Sun said:
Rides are ageing, they are also increasingly in complexity. The difference between Corkscrew and 13 must be night and day with moving parts, sensors and computer systems etc.

It’s not an excuse but it would perhaps necessitate the need for an even bigger tech team than what has ever been currently operating at Towers. Increases in health and safety must also play a part.

The downtime this year has been shocking. You shouldn’t be going to a theme park and wondering what is going to be broken or operating each time. If it was pay per ride I am sure you would see an increase in up time available.

It’s not just Alton, all the Merlin parks suffer with the same issues. Chessington have failed to fix an off the shelf rollercoaster in 18 months of down time. The other rides are also up and down like a yo-yo.

I wonder if this all stems from the fact all the parks operate on 35 year leases and they are effectively being bled dry by it. Similar situation to when football clubs don’t own the ground they play in.
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Completely forgot that Merlin don't actually own their parks. Do they own the ride hardware, pre-estate sale? A stadium can always get another football team in, I suppose. Who else would take on a lease of Alton Towers, apart from Merlin? It's an awkward bugger of a situation and I'm really surprised that they ever went for it.

I know it was a leveraged buy out, so that they could finance the Merlin buyout of Tussaud's in the first place, but you've got to wonder what they were actually buying at that point.
 
If it was pay per ride, all the rides would be open, and queues would rarely get above half an hour at peak.
But progress.
 
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Blackhole_Sun said:
Rides are ageing, they are also increasingly in complexity. The difference between Corkscrew and 13 must be night and day with moving parts, sensors and computer systems etc.

It’s not an excuse but it would perhaps necessitate the need for an even bigger tech team than what has ever been currently operating at Towers. Increases in health and safety must also play a part.

The downtime this year has been shocking. You shouldn’t be going to a theme park and wondering what is going to be broken or operating each time. If it was pay per ride I am sure you would see an increase in up time available.

It’s not just Alton, all the Merlin parks suffer with the same issues. Chessington have failed to fix an off the shelf rollercoaster in 18 months of down time. The other rides are also up and down like a yo-yo.

I wonder if this all stems from the fact all the parks operate on 35 year leases and they are effectively being bled dry by it. Similar situation to when football clubs don’t own the ground they play in.
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Wholly agree with all of the above. There's been a real lack of foresight with Brexit, part availability post covid and then with not addressing pay concerns amongst technical staff too (as seen at Chessington). As Rob said, not something that'll be fixed overnight but it's clear there's a multitude of issues that's got us into the situation we're in now.
 
Ethan said:
Every coaster goes down every day its no exaggeration. As for pay per ride sod that. Fairs are like £5 per ride so imagine how much the towers coasters would be
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Absolutely no chance it would happen and I wouldn’t want it, but it would be some sort of incentive to keep rides open. Soemthing which seems to currently be missing at the moment. Not sure if they offer a bonus for uptime but they’ve had a lot of pay disagreements at Chessington, can’t imagine it’s any different at Alton.

The notion of guest interruption is an interesting one. But I highly doubt it is causing situations like Galactica on one craft like it was on the fireworks Friday.
 
Ethan said:
And there's nothing more frustrating than seeing that as a single rider
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Surely it's more frustrating not having any friends in the first place? 🤣🤣

Just skim read this topic and the last few weeks at the park sound atrocious. Reaping what they have sown for a number of years.

Any evac should be compensated, especially after a long wait. It always was with 'exit passes' even before any sort of fastrack existed. That wouldn't be an issue now if they hadn't absolutely abused the whole fastrack system for financial gain.
 
Ethan said:
Every coaster goes down every day its no exaggeration. As for pay per ride sod that. Fairs are like £5 per ride so imagine how much the towers coasters would be
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You said every ride, goes down every day, without fail. Which is just untrue.

There is absolutely an issue with ride availability, but hyperbole like that doesn’t exactly help the discussion.

It doesn’t account for the many reasons why a ride can ‘go down’ during the day either - guest illness, guest behaviour, lost property, weather etc.

Consistent late opening of rides and long term closure (such as Hex and Skyride) are arguably more reliable indicators of the problems within tech services which lead to the ride availability issues as there are less variables at play. It’s still a complex picture though.

Blackhole_Sun said:
Not sure if they offer a bonus for uptime but they’ve had a lot of pay disagreements at Chessington, can’t imagine it’s any different at Alton.
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Bonus related to uptime was called out in the aftermath of the Smiler incident as a contributing factor to the pressure on tech services to get rides open, I would be surprised if they still based bonuses on this metric.
 
I don't think it is a case of them not wanting to keep things open, I am sure Bianca and senior management are keen for the situation to improve. But clearly in 2023 they were simply not able to do anything that did improve the situation.

I believe that some action has been taken internally due to the issues throughout the year, but this alone will not be enough to make things better. Ride availability, rotting theming on some rides, poor/limited F&B offerings in the park, hotels going backwards, gardens being a complete and utter mess; it's all symptomatic of many years of neglect.

Crabbe has a lot to answer for to be honest.
 
I know it's been alluded to several times, but I don't think it can be stressed enough that between 2012-15 one of the park's main marketing lines was that Alton Towers had 50+ rides and attractions.

Based on the ride line-up we know for 2024 and assuming that all the rides that are currently closed have reopened, next year the proposed standard ride and attraction roster comes to 40, 41 if you include paid entry for The Dungeons.

Now, even at the time, '50+ ride and attractions' was a stretch in what was classed as an attraction. But it remains the case that they've lost the best part of 20% of their attractions in the past decade.
 
Ethan said:
Every coaster goes down every day its no exaggeration. As for pay per ride sod that. Fairs are like £5 per ride so imagine how much the towers coasters would be
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At around £35 entry to Alton Towers, doing the seven main coasters once each is £5 each anyway. Depending on how busy the day is, that might be all some people get on. Its probably close to £3-5 per ride on most days anyway.
 
I think we can probably leave the pay per ride discussion please. It's not really anything that's realistically going to happen, so it's not really relevant to the discussion that's taking place regarding ride availability.
 
AT86 said:
You said every ride, goes down every day, without fail. Which is just untrue.
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Every ride as in the coasters should've been more clear. They're the most important attractions at a theme park aren't they. The rest are just filler rides
 
NuttySquirrel said:
Maybe not on every ride, but yes certainly every day. Every single day I've visited this year there have been rides going down on multiple occasions. Sometimes they are reopened quickly, sometimes not.

Reliability is *much* worse than in previous years.
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Are we also aware of it more, because of apps and the ability to be constantly updated? In years gone previous, if a ride was experiencing temporary issues, would the queue be closed straight away as it is now (along with the app being updated)? Someone in the Rita queue would be unaware of Air going down, unless it was a serious outage for a significant period of time, rather than yo-yoing.

I'm aware that availability is awful, but I'm trying to guage just how much awful and why perceived reliability sucks too. There's our perception and observational abilities, there are increased technical issues, there are potentially increased human/rider issues and increased safety checks. Finding out just how much each of these contributes to the overall picture would be interesting.
 
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