Ride Capacity/Ridership?

[coasterrz]

I know that on PKI`s website they have a number of riders for particular rides. My question is do the ride operators keep track of how many people ride their rides in an hour/how many cycles are run in an hour? Are the numbers on the PKI website accurate? How do they count the number of people on the coasters? I know some rides (at least used to anyway) have turnstiles that counted how many people entered line. Now I know some flat rides use a hand counter to keep track of number of riders. I think I remember seeing something on a whiteboard on the door to The Beast`s control booth that mentioned total number of cycle in a day, or something similar to that.

[FOF]

Most major rides have an automatic counter, example each time Beast dispatches a train it counts 36 riders, the operator than pushes a button to subtract empty seats. On smaller rides they either have a turnstile or its up to the operator using a clicker and counting cycles.

[SOB/Gun Steve-O]

The coasters use an automatic counter that displays the # of trains and rides - the driver enters in how many empty seats there are on each train. I think the other rides use hand counters.

The numbers on the webiste, for Gun and SOB anyways, are not accurate at all. Maybe SOB could get up to near 1000 with three trains (I think we normally get 600-700 people and hour), but with Top Gun is says 1400 - if we were flying and had no empty seats, we might get close to 900. It is unusual to break 750 - even with nearly full trains.

[PKIguy14]

I remember seeing on the website that Flight of Fear could move 2000 in an hour with 4 trains. I thought it only had 2 trains now and I don't think it could move people that fast. I think it said Vortex could handle 1600, but I guess I could believe that since the line is always moving.

[AZ Kinda Guy]

The numbers on the main website are off. They are possible, for the most part, but they are about impossible to hit because, well, people are morons.

[adbort]

I think it said Vortex could handle 1600, but I guess I could believe that since the line is always moving.

Believe it or not, Vortex could easiy hit 1600 per hour, only if: Every train is dispatched at the bell, and they are no empty seats. I was on Vortex crew in 2001, and on our good days, we could hit 1100 per hour, but that was a good day. Our average of riders per hour, were between 800 and 1000. Boy do I miss those days of being a PKI Ride op.

[coasterrz]

Thanks for all the information! We don`t do anything like that at Coney. The only thing we do is count the number of tickets each ride recieves at the end of the day. Which does little to determine how many people ride the rides since there are far more rides bracelets than people using individual tickets. Probably the most popular ride at Coney are the Dodgems.

[BoObKiNoS]

Adventure Express also says 1600 guests an hour, and thats nearly achievable...ive seen 1485 once.

[SOB_TOM]

TRTR is capable of 770 PPH, and we have been on track for it, but then something happens and we miss it.

When we had three ops in the room at once we could hit it, but with two ops, its near impossible. You have to really concentrate on it and fly through the restraints.

And yes, when you are going for your max, it seems like every stupid person in the park is in line for your ride. It gets frustrating real easy.

[StXBomber]

The capacity on the site is accurate... in a perfect world. This means every seat is taken, and everyone knows how to get in the seat and does so with no problems. Of course, in reality it's a whole other story.

[adbort]

Yes that is true, all depends on how quicky people can get into the seats. Also on coasters depends on if we have to take a kid out of the seats to measure them one last time. They are alot of things that can bring your hourly capacity down. One thing that brought our capacity down on Vortex was when they installed that stupid gate at the exit. People stand in the station, the person checking unload could not check his/her bars until the gate was closed, since the co-distpatch button was on that side. In 2002 though they did move the co-distpatch button over to load side, so i'm not sure if this has increased capacity or not. One thing that I always thought was weird, Vortex didn't seem to bring that many more riders in with 3 trains. During the last 2 month's of the season Vortex always went to 2 trains, and on average we did about the same as if we were running 3. If every train on Vortex is distpatched on time then no train would ever stop in the ready's. In PKI Terms this is called a bullet train. With 2 train op, every train should be a bullet.