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Virtual queuing system

B

bleepbleep

TS Member
Hello everyone,

If you were on the Discord chat at 5pm this evening you may have seen me wittering on about this already. However,I want to pitch an idea to you all. I've already pitched it to my 13 year old enthusiast son, who has been VERY constructive in his feedback!

Anyway, I make radio paging devices, which is intself a dull topic. However, I have had a brainwave re AT and similar theme parks regarding virtual queuing and RAP.

What I was thinking is a paging device that will send a colour-coded (or similar) bleep to signal that it's time to go on the ride. A rentable device (that I make) that will bleep/vibrate when it's your ride time. I'm thinking your device gets registered at the ride point and then you return when the queue time has elapsed. This way, if there's a breakdown (RITA...) then that can be added on. It's fairer, not expensive, an upcharge that's more reasonable than and can be used alongside fastpass, and it can be used with RAP (no upcharge) to streamline the process.

Pros:
signal transmitted from central area (Towers Street for example) with one transmission device. Money saving and centralised.
RF signal is very reliable and will work in AT terrain, even with the hills.
My devices are basically indestructible (if I do say so myself).
Idiot proof, no text needed. If a yellow light flashes, that means your Smiler queue is over. If it's red, time to go on Wicker Man etc etc.
It's cheap. No line rental needed.

Cons
Involves users carrying a loose article onto rides.
Will need to train staff to use the devices/transmitter.
Involves Merlin spending (a modest amount of) money.
They must have thought of this already and haven't made it yet... presumably there's a reason why!


I'm (in my deluded state) seriously considering making a prototype and pitching this product. Any help gratefully received :)
 
Sorry I didn't get to reply on Discord, but how would it work for blind or colour-blind people?
 
Sounds good but I can spot some questions you’d need to consider in your proposal. Towers is a huge site - how much notice would people get to walk back to the ride they’re virtually queuing for? Would they be able to queue for more than 1 ride at a time? Also, I think Zeock’s point is good - you’d need to consider various impairments/disabilities to equality proof it. Would it require a deposit to to ensure it is returned at the end of the day?
 
zeock said:
Sorry I didn't get to reply on Discord, but how would it work for blind or colour-blind people?
Click to expand...
Good point! Each LED is separate so I guess it would work in the same way as traffic lights. As well as a colour, it would be labelled. But I'll have to have a think about that.
 
Other parks (such as Liseberg for example) just have a virtual queuing system built in to their park app. What would be the advantage of using a pager over that kind of app based system? I think a system where you just get assigned a time and a slot window is pretty straightforward and has benefits over using a separate piece of hardware.
 
Alix said:
Sounds good but I can spot some questions you’d need to consider in your proposal. Towers is a huge site - how much notice would people get to walk back to the ride they’re virtually queuing for? Would they be able to queue for more than 1 ride at a time? Also, I think Zeock’s point is good - you’d need to consider various impairments/disabilities to equality proof it. Would it require a deposit to to ensure it is returned at the end of the day?
Click to expand...
I guess the logistics around that would be up to AT. If it were me I would say 15 minutes to get on the ride but allow an unofficial grace time of an hour. I'm not sure TBH. Same with queuing for more than one ride at a time. The soft me would say yes, go on as many as you can; but that's probably not fair. At Disney it always used to be that you could only get one of those deli-style tickets at a time.

I think it would need to be charged for, for sure. People abuse things that are free.
 
Shaggy_Dog_ said:
Other parks (such as Liseberg for example) just have a virtual queuing system built in to their park app. What would be the advantage of using a pager over that kind of app based system? I think a system where you just get assigned a time and a slot window is pretty straightforward and has benefits over using a separate piece of hardware.
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Signal coverage and reliability mainly. Plus then you don't have to have an app or a phone. But you make a good point.
 
Shaggy_Dog_ said:
Other parks (such as Liseberg for example) just have a virtual queuing system built in to their park app. What would be the advantage of using a pager over that kind of app based system? I think a system where you just get assigned a time and a slot window is pretty straightforward and has benefits over using a separate piece of hardware.
Click to expand...
Why don't Merlin employ this?
 
bleepbleep said:
I guess the logistics around that would be up to AT. If it were me I would say 15 minutes to get on the ride but allow an unofficial grace time of an hour. I'm not sure TBH. Same with queuing for more than one ride at a time. The soft me would say yes, go on as many as you can; but that's probably not fair. At Disney it always used to be that you could only get one of those deli-style tickets at a time.

I think it would need to be charged for, for sure. People abuse things that are free.
Click to expand...
I think though if you’re making an unsolicited bid you might want to head off these sorts of questions otherwise you may not get very far - if it’s not something they’re currently looking at and will cost them money they probably won’t engage with it unless you’re fixing a problem they have - identify the problem and solve any others and I think you’d have more chance
 
The problem is the cost of rolling out such a system vs just adding something to the app or website. Software solutions that harness hardware people already have will always be cheaper and easier to maintain
 
WillPS said:
orlandoinformer.com

Universal Orlando's Q-Bot Ride Reservation System | Orlando Informer

Universal Orlando Resort guests who wished to minimize their wait times used to have a less-expensive alternative to purchasing Express Passes: called the
orlandoinformer.com orlandoinformer.com

I remember seeing it on Tomorrow's World (remember that?) 20-25ish years ago being trialled at Thorpe Park.
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I do remember Tomorrow's World. I've had a read through and I can see it is an alpha pager, so there's that difference. I prefer tone only, but then I would say that. I'm also not sure that it's actually a true pager. It seems more like a stopwatch. I think I need to do more reading on the Qbot.
 
Alsty said:
The problem is the cost of rolling out such a system vs just adding something to the app or website. Software solutions that harness hardware people already have will always be cheaper and easier to maintain
Click to expand...
This is true. My answer would be that phones and apps are wholly unreliable. But, admittedly, what does Merlin care about that?! But there must be a reason that they haven't introduced virtual queuing on their app. And I would argue that paging isn't a software solution at all: it's the radio equivalent of a town crier shouting at you. Hence it's idiot proof, and basically free to maintain.
 
Alix said:
I think though if you’re making an unsolicited bid you might want to head off these sorts of questions otherwise you may not get very far - if it’s not something they’re currently looking at and will cost them money they probably won’t engage with it unless you’re fixing a problem they have - identify the problem and solve any others and I think you’d have more chance
Click to expand...
I agree. But maybe it is something they are looking at... have seen rumors of paging devices used for virtual queuing from a couple of years ago. Does anyone know why they didn't go ahead?
 
Walibi Holland forced everyone to use mobile Q-bot during covid. It... didn't work well. Good idea on paper but it massively increased demand for support rides (that weren't using the system) and still resulted in 20-30 minute physical queues on top of the 2hr virtual queues

I still think it CAN work and could well be less bad than having main, FT and RAP queues all competing against each other but it's certainly not trivial to implement.

I don't see them using dedicated hardware either - they'd need thousands of devices on peak days and people would inevitably steal/break them unless there was a substantial deposit.
 
John said:
Walibi Holland forced everyone to use mobile Q-bot during covid. It... didn't work well. Good idea on paper but it massively increased demand for support rides (that weren't using the system) and still resulted in 20-30 minute physical queues on top of the 2hr virtual queues

I still think it CAN work and could well be less bad than having main, FT and RAP queues all competing against each other but it's certainly not trivial to implement.

I don't see them using dedicated hardware either - they'd need thousands of devices on peak days and people would inevitably steal/break them unless there was a substantial deposit.
Click to expand...
The questions to be answered here are:

Would it be better then to say only one ride at a time so as not to overwhelm support rides?
Why did people still have to queue for 30 mins?
What would have made it better for you?
Why do restaurants/gyms/leisure parks still choose to use paging devices when mobile software is available?

It would be pointless to steal them as they would be dead devices then. And they aren't easy to break (although it is possible, I admit.) But why??

These are all helpful points. Thanks to everyone. I'm taking it all on board!

I guess an important question is would you use one if on offer? If not, why not?
 
BPB used to use the qbot system, it was great for us luddites.
Combined 3 versions of queue, fast, medium and standard...we used em all over time, queued in the bar on the standard.
Falls apart on busy days and with breakdowns...lots of queues either full or closed rides makes it messy.
 
In my imagination it would be like this:

Collect pager from Services.
Head to big ride. Join access queue.
Have pager QR code scanned according to ride capacity (say, 15 people clocked in every 5-10 minutes. This includes AP people).
Wander off for a burger and watch a show.
Pager goes off an hour later. Press button to shut it up. Walk to big ride.
The pager goes off in intervals of 10 minutes. So every 10 minutes, 15 people show up to ride. This is a train full. So every 10 minutes, one full train is just pager/AP people. This is easier IMO. (excuse my statistics... they may be way off)
After riding, you can go and do another of the big rides.
 
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