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Queue Time Displays

B

Bowser

Mega Poster
Which parks have the most accurate queue time displays? I just saw a Vlog from Hansa Park in Germany where it says they have queue times accurate to the minute (eg. 17 minute wait)!

Merlin ones seem pretty ropey and usually quite behind what is actually happening.
 
Europa Park had pretty accurate ones on my visits. Phantasialand last month the other hand... Umm, probably the worst I've seen!
 
I'll take this opportunity to ask how in the world do they work. Like, do they have sensors along the queue that check for how full it is? Some algorithm based on how many people enter and exit the station? A station employee enters their own estimate by looking at the queue?
 
Boodangy said:
I'll take this opportunity to ask how in the world do they work. Like, do they have sensors along the queue that check for how full it is? Some algorithm based on how many people enter and exit the station? A station employee enters their own estimate by looking at the queue?
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I don’t know if they still do it, but years ago Disney used to randomly give a lanyard put to guests as they joined the queue, asking them to hand it in once they reached the station. This lanyard was scanned at both ends to give the current queue time.
 
Boodangy said:
I'll take this opportunity to ask how in the world do they work. Like, do they have sensors along the queue that check for how full it is? Some algorithm based on how many people enter and exit the station? A station employee enters their own estimate by looking at the queue?
Click to expand...
I believe it is an algorithm that takes into account the length of the queue line and the current dispatch rate, or the PPH. Then it can estimate the number of people in the queue based on the length and then see how many hours it will take to get them all through.
 
Wazzupnerds said:
During my Disney and Universal visits, I find them to be fairly accurate.
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I found Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure to massively over-report. Across all my rides on Hagrid's, the posted queue time was between 3 and 4 times what I actually queued, and I quickly learned that if the queue doesn't extend to the outside portion, it isn't going to exceed 30 minutes. All the while the posted time ready 85min or 120min.
 
Tonkso said:
I found Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure to massively over-report. Across all my rides on Hagrid's, the posted queue time was between 3 and 4 times what I actually queued, and I quickly learned that if the queue doesn't extend to the outside portion, it isn't going to exceed 30 minutes. All the while the posted time ready 85min or 120min.
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I found that to be true also. I was seeing 3-4 hour queue lines, but never exceeding a 1/2 hour wait.
 
Tonkso said:
Putting on my cynical hat, I can't help but think it's a ploy to sell more fastpass tickets.
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While I'm sure certain parks/chains do this, some parks use the queue boards as a way to manage crowds. If the area around a ride is very busy, they inflate the queue times to encourage people to go away to areas with lowers queues and crowds.

Blackpool's was abysmal on Friday. It was reporting a 10 minute wait for avalanche, while I was 20 minutes into a 35 minute wait!
 
Boodangy said:
I'll take this opportunity to ask how in the world do they work. Like, do they have sensors along the queue that check for how full it is? Some algorithm based on how many people enter and exit the station? A station employee enters their own estimate by looking at the queue?
Click to expand...

Many parks will just go for the "guesstimating" approaches, simply because it is free. The cost of implementing and maintaining systems to get accurate queue times is not seen as worth it.

This discussion has come up before a couple of times, so I'll link an original post of mine: https://www.coasterforce.com/forums...er-than-the-expected-time.45062/#post-1117967

So I'm just going to use this thread to spend some time chatting about queue times because why not.

I used to work at a theme park where it was my job to ensure that the queue times were updated regularly and accurately. I guess you could say it was a job like no other. So it's something I was very interested, and still have a semi-active interest in.
(I'm sure I've made a post on here before which will be similar to this post, so sorry if I bore you with repeat details).

Obviously I can't speak for every park, but I know that many parks do not have any technical system for updating queue times. In other words, it's just "guess and hope for the best". Of course, one can make an educated guess, especially by speaking with guests, experiencing queue times yourself and with experience. But it's a guess all the same. Immediately, it's obvious to see why queue times are inaccurate. Educated guesses will largely be inaccurate.

As toofpikk mentioned, rides teams rarely have direct control over them. There's usually a 'middle-man' figure. One can see the temptation - it helps create a sense of accountability (make sure the queue time is updated), and takes the pressure off when someone working on rides has several other responsibilities too. But equally, it adds another person to the change, and increases the chance for a mistake. It also means that the people working on a ride aren't guaranteed to know what the displayed queue time is.

Another issue with rides teams updating queue times is being able to actually see the queue. The operator of the ride should have full CCTV coverage of the ride and ride area. But there's no need (from a H&S perspective) for the operator to have a view of the queue line if it's not near a ride area. Of course, there should be CCTV coverage for security purposes, but not for the ride operator purpose.
What that means is that a ride operator might not be able to see the full queue. Or they can see the queue in the background of CCTV for the ride. This makes it more difficult to understand how long a queue might be.

To go back to when I had a role updating queue times. I had access to a system which could update the queue times (a very simple interface of each ride having a drop down menu of queue times). I would also regularly walk round the park and check the length of the queues in person. My role involved being a middle man, but a two way middle man. This meant that ride operators could contact me to update queue times, but I could also contact ride operators and inform them when I had updated it as well.
This allowed consistency between different parties about what the queue times were, and meant they were regularly updated.

Systems for updating queue times automatically
There are systems out there which can predict queue times automatically. Some which I am aware of:
1. If a park has an app, and guests allow certain permissions when downloading the app, the app shows the amount of people in certain areas / queues around the park.
2. Headmapping software, which overlays CCTV cameras and counts people going in and out of a queue.
3. The good old fashioned turnstiles

Each of these all have (pretty big) problems though:
1. If people don't download the app, or only have it as 1 between a group, it's pretty damn inaccurate.
2. Such systems require cameras specifically for the software and are surprisingly expensive
3. Easily open to abuse (people spinning the turnstiles for fun)

I'd love to know how somewhere like Efteling manage their queue times. In all of my visits, the queue time estimates have been extremely accurate.

In short though, automatic systems are a good idea in theory, but from what I've heard, harder to implement in practice.


Anyway, moving away from that diversion. Probably the simplest and most cost effective way to move forward for most parks is to just get staff to update the queue times, and ensure this is done frequently and accurately.
I remember reading a research paper which analysed people's behaviour whilst queueing (this was a few years back, and to this day I still cannot find it, so you'll just have to trust me on this). In the UK, if you have groups of people forming a narrow-ish queue, then - on average - you'll find about 11 people every 3m. This is because of the way groups of acquainted people (friends, etc) group together, and then the space they left between their group and a stranger group.
Obviously, that was a study conducted pre-pandemic, so it would be interesting to see how that's changed now, and what the numbers are like in a couple of years' time, for example.

But with that knowledge, one can easily create a way for park staff to understand how long a queue should take from given points. You can measure the length of your queue, determine how many people should be in the queue at given points. Then, knowing the throughput of the ride, you can do some simple maths to calculate a more reasoned educated guess for a queue time.
One can also take that a step further, and if you're able to analyse the changes of the throughput, and even the amount of downtime a ride has on average, you can account for fluctuations too. But that's somewhat more involved.

From experience, something like this can work and can provide accurate queue times. But it requires a certain level of set up, buy in, understanding and drive from many parties, which can be difficult to achieve.

I've rambled a bit here now. And I haven't even touched upon other factors for estimating queue times such as Fast Pass users, numbers of disabled guests, etc. But needless to say, they make estimations more difficult.

A couple more final things though, which admittedly is just reiterating toof's points mostly.
-Towards the ends of shifts, ride staff may not update queue times properly. It happens.
-Covid and social distancing made to much harder to gauge queue times.
-If possible, it's always worth trying to look at a queue and try and use some common sense to see if an advertised queue time is accurate. Not easy when queues are indoors / sprawling. But if you can see a queue, it's a smart idea to exercise that common.

tl;dr
1. Estimating queue times is hard, especially if it's down to ride staff who have many other jobs to do.
1.1. BUT it is possible.
2. Automated systems exist, but your mileage may vary with success.
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As for predicted queue times, I've found Efteling to be one the best. Phantasialand, generally, are very good in my experiences, but I know that's not always the case.
Six Flags Great Adventure and Hersheypark were pretty poor for accuracy. Chessington feels like the worst for accuracy out of the UK parks. Though, in general, UK parks aren't great I've found.
 
I remember a lot of parks used to have signs with things like "queue time 30 minutes from this point" (Chessington still has it at the Vampire Disabled Access entrance, much to the dismay of all present) which seems like an easy to implement system that ride staff can update at a glance.
 
In general, estimates feel like they've gotten better/more accurate over time. I still assume it's black magic, elves, or something to the exact mechanics of how they keep count.
 
Just back from Plopsa, who don't seem to display their queue times ANYWHERE. Tres annoying.
 
For Merlin parks, its the ride ops guessing based on how far through the queue the line stretches to. They see the end of the line on the cameras, call a central control team, and get them to update the time on the system. There were never any policies of inflating wait times to encourage fast passes, though we would usually high-ball the estimations as there were loads of irate parents that "were told it was a 40 minute queue and they've been waiting over an hour!" (aka 45 mins). So overestimating it would leave guests pleasantly surprised.
 
Crazycoaster said:
I don’t know if they still do it, but years ago Disney used to randomly give a lanyard put to guests as they joined the queue, asking them to hand it in once they reached the station. This lanyard was scanned at both ends to give the current queue time.
Click to expand...
Ooh that happened to me 8 years ago on Kilimanjaro Safaris in Animal Kingdom, I was very excited thinking I'd get something for helping. I did not.

Disney also definatley amend their displayed queue times in order to manage guest flow. Touring Plans have done many videos on the subject for example. I saw this happen for me last year as the posted time for Its a Small World was 30 mins when it was a walk on. This was late in the day and I assume it was to discourage people from going on.
 
Changa said:
For Merlin parks, its the ride ops guessing based on how far through the queue the line stretches to. They see the end of the line on the cameras, call a central control team, and get them to update the time on the system. There were never any policies of inflating wait times to encourage fast passes, though we would usually high-ball the estimations as there were loads of irate parents that "were told it was a 40 minute queue and they've been waiting over an hour!" (aka 45 mins). So overestimating it would leave guests pleasantly surprised.
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How often did they update?
 
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