A ? for PKI workers

[flightoffear1996]

I was wondering all of you people who work rides at PKI. At Cedar Point the dispatch there rides really really fast. Like your in the station 30-40 seconds max. Why does it take PKI so much longer to dispatch there rides specially on The Racer?

[DeliriumDreamer]

The answer to that is simple. We are concerned more with safety and guest satisfaction than anything else. As with almost everything, safety is our number one priority. We take a little bit more time, just to make sure that you are safe, and the the ride ops who check seats don't die of exhaustion.

Safety is our commitment- Service is our passion.

[flightoffear1996]

Im not bashing the park here at all but....... PKI has had more deaths than CP. I'm not excatly sure how many people died at PKI I think like 4 or 5 and I know that CP has never had a death at the park.

[UncleHenry]

Probably the main reason we have to wait is the computer system. You know how on RCT2 and many other coaster games you can set up a block system so a train can't enter one section of track unless the next one is empty? Many coasters at PKI are like this. The problem with Racer is that it's a racing coaster. One side may be done, but to race they have to wait on the other side. If they don't race, capasity goes up, but people complain about not racing. If they race, some people will be happy, but others will complain about waiting.

EDIT: And as far as I know, none of the deaths at PKI were ride operators' faults.

[CoastersRZ]

Another reason why Cedar Point can dispatch trains faster has to deal with staffing. At Kings Island, they will have only two or three people checking lapbars at a time. While at Cedar Point they will have four or five checking bars at a time, so the operators are checking less bars on the train, and can thus safely dispatch it quicker, if the block ahead is clear.

For example on The Beast, I know numerous times when the train was checked and ready to be sent out. But the other train was still on lift one, so the train in the station couldn`t be sent until the train on the lift was off of the lift and out of the block.

[stephenmayes]

Im not bashing the park here at all but....... PKI has had more deaths than CP. I'm not excatly sure how many people died at PKI I think like 4 or 5 and I know that CP has never had a death at the park.

Read the OFficial reports from these deaths-- NO one has actually died at PKI. They always die on their way to the hospital. It is the parks way of well, keeping the thought of people dying in their park from entering peoples minds. Also only one death was actually on a ride I believe, I could be wrong tho.

[teenageninja]

Ok rant time...

Cedar Point on Magnum will have 4 people checking bars. Vortex has 2. Cedar Creek Mine Ride has 2 as does Express, but their first block is longer. It's all about the length of the block and popularity of the ride at CP. However, at KI every coaster has 2, sometimes 3 on a good day. Also, the one woman that died on a RIDE at KI, wast he woman on Flight Commander, and she had undone her safety hernesses, so that's not operator error.

[BoddaH1994]

Im not bashing the park here at all but.......  PKI has had more deaths than CP.  I'm not excatly sure how many people died at PKI I think like 4 or 5 and I know that CP has never had a death at the park.

Read the OFficial reports from these deaths-- NO one has actually died at PKI. They always die on their way to the hospital. It is the parks way of well, keeping the thought of people dying in their park from entering peoples minds. Also only one death was actually on a ride I believe, I could be wrong tho.

Actually, two. Flight Commander and Tower.

[CoastersRZ]

The lady that died on Flight Commander did not undo her restraint. Instead, she slid under the restraint (she was legally intoxicated). The park was not faulted for the incident, because the Ohio Department of Agriculture determined the restraint was improperly designed to allow single riders to be able to slip under the restraints. So it was the manufacturer (Intamin) who was ultimately responsible, although, it might not have happened if she wasn`t intoxicated.

[familyman]

Amusement parks are having a tough time these days staffing a park. They have had to recruit workers out of the country even. For the most part I believe PKI is doing the best job they can with the staffing issues.

[PKI_Diana]

Im not bashing the park here at all but....... PKI has had more deaths than CP. I'm not excatly sure how many people died at PKI I think like 4 or 5 and I know that CP has never had a death at the park.

They have a larger amount of injuries though....

[PKI_Diana]

Read the OFficial reports from these deaths-- NO one has actually died at PKI. They always die on their way to the hospital. It is the parks way of well, keeping the thought of people dying in their park from entering peoples minds. Also only one death was actually on a ride I believe, I could be wrong tho.

I'm fairly positive you're wrong.

PKI has more injuries than we think anyhow, because lawsuits against the park are settled all the time....

It is the way of business.

[PKI_Diana]

Amusement parks are having a tough time these days staffing a park. They have had to recruit workers out of the country even. For the most part I believe PKI is doing the best job they can with the staffing issues.

Just wait until the ride op law becomes 18+. You all might think it will never come.... but I'm sure it's on its way, even if it doesn't go into law until 2010.

[flightoffear1996]

I bet it will happen before then, then parks will really have a hard time staffing the rides however it can be done. Higher wages is the best way. So the admission would go up as a result but people will still be willing to pay the higher price for a more effiecent and safe park.

[UncleHenry]

Don't make me call the wahambulance!

I took a trip to Michigan's Adventure last summer, and PKI had MUCH better capacity than that, and MIA is a Cedar Fair park!

Shivering Timbers had 2 trains, but the blocking system was so awful they had to wait until the other train got back to the helix just before the end of the ride to dispatch!

Mad Mouse had several cars sitting and waiting for long periods of time before being dispatched, and had a wait to get off.

Wolverine Wildcat had 1 train.

And now, the award for WORST capasity on a single ride: CORKSCREW!

This ride had just 1 train, and just 2 people working it TOTAL. 1 person at the controls, and another person checking ALL of the restraints. Thats right, he would check the seat on his side, then reach over and check the other side. Not only that, but on top of it all, the bar checker had to MANUALLY unlock and lock ALL of the restraints. Anyone who works Vortex (for this was the exact same trains) could tell you how much of a pain that would be, and how much of a capacity killer it would be.

So stop whining, other parks are much, MUCH worse.

[flightoffear1996]

I realize that I only started this topic out of interest. I really love PKI and its staff for a good safetly record.

[DeliriumDreamer]

I bet it will happen before then, then parks will really have a hard time staffing the rides however it can be done.  Higher wages is the best way.  So the admission would go up as a result but people will still be willing to pay the higher price for a more effiecent and safe park.

Well, it's a good thing that I take Economics AP. In fact, this past week we talked about equal distribution of wages. Think of it this way, if one paramount park raises it's wages(for all employees), then they all have to, because they are a part of the Viacom corporation. No one park is separate. Sure, deriving the supply curve for wages (imperfectly competitive) points out that you will recieve more employees if you offer more money. But is that economically efficient for Viacom if they do offer more money for all of their parks? Then they would have to make up for the lost profit by charging a higher price for tickets.

Also- the law of diminishing marginal returns shows why the marginal cost curve slopes downward. Once pki reaches it's profit maximization point, it has no where to go but down, because with every unit of more employees added, they produce at a lesser quality and quantity. (for example: if we had six people checking bars on one side of racer, you may have to wait longer for dispatch, because either these people weren't trained well enough, or they just plainly can't work together efficiently.) More people to train + less time to train them = poorly trained employees.

[AZ Kinda Guy]

Heres my two cents..Everyone does something REALLY good right? Right....

So Cedar Point, they are REALLY good with building awesome thrill rides and suck ass when it comes to providing a whole experience inside the park for families. Kings Island kicks ass on the family thing but sucks ass IMHO when it comes to building awesome thrill rides however there are a few exceptions.

As for the operations end of things. Again, Everyone does something really good. At KI, outside of safety, guest relating(going out of your way to talk to a guest) is what it's all about, not capacity. Which is fine, because Kings Island is really good at that. Now Cedar Point, outside of safety, it's all about capacity, not guest relating. Which is fine too, because obviously, they are really good at it. Sure both parks do both things but one park does one better then the other park and vice versa.

What about safety? Both parks do a superb job. Just because it's not the Kings Island way of doign something doesn't make it unsafe.

So in the end it comes down to what some of the higher ups think is more important. Kings Island chooses guest interaction while Cedar Point chooses capacity. To each their own.

[BoddaH1994]

Also- the law of diminishing marginal returns shows why the marginal cost curve slopes downward. Once pki reaches it's profit maximization point, it has no where to go but down, because with every unit of more employees added, they produce at a lesser quality and quantity. (for example: if we had six people checking bars on one side of racer, you may have to wait longer for dispatch, because either these people weren't trained well enough, or they just plainly can't work together efficiently.) More people to train + less time to train them = poorly trained employees.

So basically what you're trying to say is that if they added a lot more people, there would still be a bottleneck that would keep the times down.

I still think that they could stand to add a few people to some rides to maxamize efficency.

Ryan

[Knoxville]

Kings Island has a hard enough probmel getting new employees, they just can't ship over people from other countrys like Cedar Point does.

[AZ Kinda Guy]

Yeah they can.

[PKIDelirium]

And they do.....I saw some Mexicans working in Eco this year who could hardly speak english.

[CYoung2003]

People from all over the world work all over the park in different departments, even rides.

[HabloRM]

And they do.....I saw some Mexicans working in Eco this year who could hardly speak english.

There was no mexicans working in Eco this year. The last time they had them was back in 2000. We had the Polish this year in Eco.

[SOB_TOM]

Anyone else remember the internationals? I loved the guys from back in 2002, but we didnt get any in 03.

[infogirl]

There wont be any internationals next season . The program has been cut from pki

[The-Snapper]

Well one reason why is because PKI doesnt staff there rides well at all. For instance I work on The Beast and our Min of people is 4 well those busy summer days we would only have 4 or 5 people. So that means 1 person to check lap bars per side. So its a lot slower process. Also our blocks are really spread out wierd. Paramount wants there to be a crtian amount of blocks before another train will enter that block for high saftey reasons.

[CoastersRZ]

Yeah. I remember hearing that Paramount Parks are over conservative on their block setup. Particularly in The Beast, they want to have a minumum of one unoccupied block seperating the trains, or something similar to that. The Problem with The Beast, is that the first llift hill is usually slowed, waiting for the second train to clear the seond lift. Because the train on lift one is slowed, that means that the train in the station is usually cleared and ready to dispatch, before the train on lift 1 is gone. This creates a bottleneck. Usually, though, from my experience, the crew has been very efficient with checking the lap bars, and almost always is waiting for the train to clear lift one. Numerous times this year, the train that is coming off of lift two has slowed, but not stopped in the brakes before the station. On days when the crew is that efficient, the crew is getting as many people through the ride as the ride will possibly let them.

I understand how only having 4 or five people to run a ride can be tough. At Coney, I often worked the Scrambler by myself. At Coney, they don`t have two start buttons like the one at PKI. It is extremely difficult on busy days, to count enough people, make sure they have wristbands on, and make sure they are tall enough to ride. It often got chaotic. On days when there were two of us at Scrambler, it made things go a lot smoother and more efficiently.

[HabloRM]

Anyone else remember the internationals? I loved the guys from back in 2002, but we didnt get any in 03.

On VAT in '03 we had two internationals from Poland. They switch areas year by year. Like Coney had internationals last year, this year we didn't and Rivertown had them as well as HB.

[shadow2k3]

AZ didn't really see many internationals outside of sends, now that I think of it. But back to the subject of capacity, you also have to figure in crew chemistry. If a crew doesn't get along, work properly, or just plain doesn't listen to anybody, capacity usually goes down. I didn't see much social interaction at CP, but I have seen some at PKI sometimes. Y'know... being an associate and all. lol.

But here's a little tidbit I heard from word of mouth about CP's safety... take it with a grain of salt.

"Capacity is more important than safety"

O_o

~S~