Single rider at Thorpe Park

[Cal]

I've only ever used single rider queues at Alton Towers and I think they're great! I never went to Thorpe park at the time when they were using the single rider ques for some of the rides. Every time I've seen or asked why they got rid of it they've always said people misused it. I just saw this on Facebook replying to someone.

 

 

 

We used to operate single rider queues but no longer do so due to abuse of the system which slowed down the queue for everyone.

How were people misusing the system? The system is for people who are willing to ride alone, I don't see how it can be misused? 

 

Also how did this lead to slowing down the queue for everyone else? 

[Fred]

Think what oblivions line is made by - it's very very very easy to enter the main queuelines, particularly as you have stations either side!

 

A properly batched line, which is consistently properly batched and not open to abuse or slowing down in any way is a good system. It's just rare to see one.

[Marc]

well I gave up on respecting Thorpe's media when they said they got good feedback on reserve and ride. Funny they say SRQ was abused when they have just created a system which is the easiest thing to abuse in all of history.

 

Thorpe will have a much better idea on the feedback from the trials than we will! More times than not somthing which enthusiasts hate the general public love! 

[Project LC]

Maybe thorpe would be better off if they listened to the enthusiasts. I'm sure a fair few of them will know how the general public actually feel and will be able to identify problems which maybe thorpe have not. yes the enthusiasts will over exaggerate but there the ones which will keep coming back and most likely end up spending the most in their shops and on fastracks per head per year.

[Benin]

Any enthusiast worth their salt won't have a high amount of spend per head on Fastrack...

[Project LC]

I didn't mean the proper enthusiasts I more meant the people that will visit about 4 times a year which call themselves enthusiasts. The people which visit 15+ times a year will never buy a fastrack but they will end up spending a lot on drinks and food.

[Marc]

Maybe thorpe would be better off if they listened to the enthusiasts. I'm sure a fair few of them will know how the general public actually feel and will be able to identify problems which maybe thorpe have not. yes the enthusiasts will over exaggerate but there the ones which will keep coming back and most likely end up spending the most in their shops and on fastracks per head per year.

I'm not so sure, enthusiasts of course bring up many valid points because of how many other parks they see etc, but for example will slate things like reserve n ride and arnt willing to actually give it a chance, when actually given time it looks like it's starting to work and people seem to like it.

[Fred]

It all seems to work quite well once it's not forced onto people.

 

The issue I see now is to keep the main queue happy.. as there will be people in standby, and now their estimated queue times are kaput.

[Benin]

But then you have to ask will it still be seen as a good idea as a complete replacement to normal queuing, since that's the end goal...

Add in having 3 separate queues in further tests, and the feedback would be interesting to see if it's overtly positive...

[Fred]

I don't think the end goal will be to completely eradicate it now.

 

Unsure if they'll continue down the route though. I can't help but think, no matter how well managed they think a Qbot mobile system will be, that they'll lose heavily from fastrack sales when they could just put a better allocation at higher prices in the current system (all revenue through mobile system will be split between thorpe and accesso).

[Flipper]

I've only ever used Single Rider on Nemesis and Smiler at Towers, and I find Smiler's is hit-and-miss but Nemesis can be quite well paced. Having said that, if someone says to me 'Row 6' I go to row six, sit down, bar down, belt in, with no bag or stupid footwear so I guess 'straightforward' guests like me make little issue. I do credit the way they seem to just shout 'Single' and the row number, when they need one.

 

Smiler's I find can result in the station batching not being as good as it could be. Smiler should easily have two trains, if not three (like SAW should have three) trains batched in the gates. But the single rider, can stop this happening.

 

Stealth's? I don't recall ever using. But I would say with Stealth's it'd be much quicker to try and place groups of three together, over three rows; and batch it well like that so you'll never exceed one empty seat on a train; over batching a train, filling empties, batching the next, filling the empties - flooding the platform and organising guests works much better I think - and nothing else is set up to cater for single's.

[Mark9]

From my experience, people who have worked at theme parks tend to be a bit more clued up about getting on with it. Its the rest that screw it up frankly.

[JohnD]

I was at Alton Towers yesterday with a few TST people, but they were running late so I used SRQs until they arrived. I used SRQs on Nemesis, Air, Oblivion, Rita, Thirteen and The Smiler.

SRQ seems to work well on The Smiler. The batching host is able to allocate single riders to the rows before the gates open. To minimise the risk of SRQ abuse, the merge host needs to ensure that there are as few people in the station SRQ as possible and keep the majority of the queue before merge. This would remove the incentive for SRQ users to cut into the main queue on the stairs, especially if main queue beyond merge is full.

Oblivion's SRQ is a bit of a mess. Hosts were struggling to keep track of the number of people waiting for each row. With smarter batching they could all but eliminate the need for SRQ anyway - there should never be more than 1 space per train if odd-numbered groups are paired up.

Air's SRQ demonstrated the problem of poor communication between staff and guests. When I got to the front of the SRQ there were 3 single seats on the next train, and the ride host sent us down to rows 6, 4 and 2. As I was first I went to the furthest one, but the other two people hadn't understood and just followed me. One of them quickly realised that there were 6 people in the bay and realised they should have gone to row 2 or 4, but the other person followed me through the loading gate. I think they found the right seat eventually though. On a more positive note, the policy of sending all odd-numbered groups to the left station means that even though the SRQ only serves that side the number of empty seats is minimised.

Rita's SRQ is a nightmare. On my first ride there was only 1 person in front of me so it was fine, by the time I'd got off the SRQ was half way down the steps, and has as many people in it as the main queue. A group of 4 had just joined it, clearly oblivious to this. They ended up jumping the fence as the main queue wasn't even enough to fill a train. Rita's SRQ is almost always massive these days, and often far longer than the main queue.

Thirteen had no-one in the SRQ when I arrived, but when it's busy they should hold the queue before the merge point as much as possible. If main queue is kept full and the indoor SRQ nearly empty there is no incentive for single riders to cut into the main queue as it won't be any quicker.

The SRQ on Nemesis seems to work better than it has any right to. Staff communication is key to ensure the person running the SRQ knows where the spaces are before the gates open - they seemed to manage this pretty well yesterday and the SRQ wasn't holding things up despite its terrible design.

[Fred]

Rita's is awful purely because of the entrance positioning - it's literally there shouting LOOK AT ME I AM AN ENTRANCE whereas the real entrance is nowhere to be seen. Therefore it can be known on occasions to have the gate open for as little as 10 minutes before closing again because its longer than the main queue time.