What would you consider a "good" throughput for an attraction?

[Matt N]

Hi guys. In spite of what most would expect, ride popularity is not the sole factor influencing the length of a ride's queue. Throughput, or the amount of people a ride can handle in an hour (well, any given time period, but throughputs are usually measured in people per hour, or pph), has a surprisingly large effect on how long a queue is; if one ride had a 120 minute queue with a throughput of 300pph, while another ride had a 20 minute queue with a throughput of 1,800pph, the two rides would actually have the same number of people in their queues (in theory). The ride with 1,800pph only has a "shorter" queue because it can handle far more guests in a given time period. I know I used two quite extreme examples there, but my point still stands.

Before I ramble for too long, my basic point is; throughput can have a profound effect on queue times. Some attractions are real queue munchers, with huge throughputs, while others have lower throughputs and struggle a bit more. Enthusiasts often seem to mention capacity in ride reviews if it's particularly high or low. So my question to you today is; what would you consider a good throughput for a ride?

Personally, I'm unsure. I'd say it does vary a fair bit depending on the park (a Disney park will need higher throughputs than Paultons Park, for instance), as well as other factors, but taking a park like Alton Towers as an example, I'm still unsure. I always thought that 1,000pph was considered "the magic threshold" for throughput, but I'd personally plump for a little lower than that myself, as surprisingly few rides at Alton actually exceed 1,000pph, and the park seems to cope with queues well.

But what would you personally consider a "good" throughput for an attraction?

 

[VonRolland]

I suppose it depends on the ride.
A drop tower will naturally have a lower throughput than Nemesis for instance & varies between different coasters for instance The Smiler & Rita have significantly lower pph than Nemesis & Galactica.
Personally i think a busy park needs major headline atttractions with over 1000pph minimum

 

[HeartlineCoaster]

But what would you personally consider a "good" throughput for an attraction?

While the raw numbers can be fun to analyse or even be a spectator of, in the case of watching a throughput powerhouse go to work, they are a bit arbitrary.
The most important answer is 'enough to not make me queue too much.'

 

[Pokemaniac]

It depends on the park, I'd say. It's all about how many people are queuing up for the ride. Of course Disney needs capacity machines, while someplace like Lightwater Valley could do fine with something that dispatches two guests per minute.

 

[Snoo]

It depends on the park, I'd say. It's all about how many people are queuing up for the ride. Of course Disney needs capacity machines, while someplace like Lightwater Valley could do fine with something that dispatches two guests per minute.

This guy. In many cases, you don't NEED to worry about huge throughput.. but I don't ever question why Cedar Point hasn't built a Eurofighter or taken out smaller, weaker attractions over the years with low capacity that work fine at other parks. Volume speaks to it all.