Cedar Point, Wicked Twister and Capacity Issue

There are a lot of good points made by everyone on this post. I agree with the posts that you made Jeff, but at the sametime it is a shuttle. Every shuttle coaster I have ridden has never reached its maximum capacity. I'd like to see 1,000 pph capacity on WT, and that might be possible on an best operating day. I think that WT will average 800-900 pph. Maybe more if u average in downtime that it may encounter during the operating season. I don't think that downtime will be too big of issue since they waited long enough for Intamin to get all the bugs worked out.

Charles Nungester said:

Chuck, who only rides Face off first thing or during gold pass ert.

amen chuck! i'm with you there.

back to WT......after riding the impulse at sfwoa i was actually pleasantly suprised compared to the other non full circuit coasters i've been on. i honestly believe that because CP has some of the best ride crews in the nation they will be able to get very close to 1000pph. Montu, it's so cool to see your attitude concerning this. If the whole crew is able to carry the same attitude then i don't think there will be a problem with capacity.

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seek first to understand
then to be understood

Two things... first I'm not convinced many of you have much experience visiting Cedar Point. While there can be long lines here and there in the middle of summer, I can tell you that out of the 10 parks I visited last year I waited the least at Cedar Point.

Second, many of you keep saying things like "it's a shuttle" or "I've never seen one run at capacity."

You've never seen one run at Cedar Point...

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com, Sillynonsense.com
"As far as I can tell it doesn't matter who you are. If you can believe, there's something worth fighting for..." - Garbage, "Parade"

Exactly the point Jeff. Cedar Point ride ops aren't going to be drinking coffee while checking restraints like I witnessed at SFMW.

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Have you ever considered that maybe it's not the park that's the problem, but YOU?

Jeff said:

You've never seen one run at Cedar Point...

And niether have you...or any of us for that matter, so I think we should all just wait until it opens now.

I'd say there is a very large possibility for something similar to ticket to ride. I've been told something would be used for sure, but nothing is 100% positive in the amusement industry... you really just have to go with the flow, or start your own thing, which Cedar Point really doesn't seem to do.

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Jes
Jes's Roller Coasters DJ Jes MCS
"Thank You Jeff Putz"

Funny mathematical side note:

1 minute ride cycle

1 minute unload-load/required cool down period (Considering guests won't be slow)

32 riders per cycle (considering EVERY seat is filled)

So, 2 minutes for turnaround. 60mins/hour divide by 2mins/cycle=30 cycles/hr

30 cycles/hr x 32 people/cycle = 960 pph

Mathetmatics say the theoretical capacity is 960, which won't be obtained because you aren't going to have 30 'perfect' cycles in a row, with every seat filled, and without some sort of interuption. I'd say 800 could be a high-end AVERAGE...with some cycles possibly getting close to 900.

1000=not possible.

*** This post was edited by SFGRAMBoy20 on 3/9/2002. ***

Not possible to get 30 perfect cycles in a row? The current record for dispatch intervals on Raptor is something like 325 in a row. Raptor has a dispatch interval of 45 seconds and 32 seats as well. Also, even though I'm not 100% sure of this, I've read that Wicked Twister will have assigned seating, except for the front row. Assigning seats means fewer empty ones. We'll have an interval of about 55 seconds. Hitting 30 intervals in a row is possible. There's a good chance of breaking 1000.

The issue of a cooling period has been discussed plenty at Guide to the Point. With that in mind, if it is possible to get the dispatch interval shorter, we'll be trying to do that. If we can get it down to 50 seconds, that comes out to about 1040 pph. Say we can get down to 45 seconds, the same as Raptor. That's a few more people we can get on. The trip time may even be a bit less than a minute, say 55 seconds, we'll find out soon enough.

I'll say again that one of our biggest goals this season is capacity. We'll be trying our best to break 1000, and I think it's possible. Proving the capacity skeptics wrong was one of the main reasons I wanted to work Wicked Twister.

Like Jeff said, it seems like many of you have never been to Cedar Point, and you've never seen a shuttle run at Cedar Point. This season we're gonna show you how we run a shuttle. We've got people who've worked coasters before and know what it takes, we've got others who haven't but will learn. This season you're going to see some good stuff.

My name is Andre, so stop by Wicked Twister and say hi. I'll let you know how we're doing. (For everyone attending Coastermania, I'm looking forward to our night ERT. I've got some good spiels in mind.)

We can do it. Believe me.

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"Hey, cool my voice is on the lift!"
2002 Wicked Twister Crew

That kind of "can't do" attitude is exactly not the way to represent your park, assuming you work there.

I think Andre and his team can do it. No question in my mind. As for checking for a clear platform, it's a lot easier when you have three times the operators.

For the non-believers out there, I guess you don't have an appreciation for how important capacity is park op culture at the park. There has been an all-out rivalry between Raptor and Magnum crews for years over capacity.

It'll happen.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com, Sillynonsense.com
"As far as I can tell it doesn't matter who you are. If you can believe, there's something worth fighting for..." - Garbage, "Parade"

Forget about missing intervals as a reason for reduced capacity on this ride. I've watched Gemini operate faster than 3,400 PPH, and that ride has the most critical timing of any coaster I think I have ever seen. Wicked Twister will move as many people as its design will allow, possibly more. The failure of Millennium Force to meet its target capacity has a lot to do with the ride having a much shorter running time than originally announced...by about 40 seconds.
Once they get the rhythm down for loading the train, the crew will have things moving very rapidly.

As for ride reservations, it's been tried, and it's failed miserably. The ticket system on Millennium Force was an unqualified disaster, and if you really study the opt-in ticketing systems being used around the country, they all do one of two things: Either they make everybody wait longer, or they allow a very few people to have a short wait in exchange for making everybody else wait longer.

(Of course, I watched a queue management system crash and burn at a local deli on Friday at lunch. Being denied lunch because of a FastPass-like system hasn't improved my opinion of ride reservation systems...)

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Props to Montu for his devotion to WT already. There are a lot of other ops and managers that care for their home parks greatly just as he has shown. Also remember though there is something that does come before capacity and that is safety. Keep those trains going in and out of that station as safetly and quickly as possible.

Or we could just wait for WT'sl opening day to see how bad the line is...

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.:| Brandon Rodriguez |:.
http://www.coasters2k.com

Cedar Point has the ability to get people off and on the Coaster in 40 sec. (not including ride time) with Ride Time, thats about 100 sec or 1 min 40 sec.

1min40sec = 32 riders.
60 min divided by 1min 40 sec = 35 cycles/hour
35 cycles times 32 people = 1120ppho

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Gravity knows no force, like Millennium Force. breathe. You have just broken ten world records.
Beyond coaster....Giga Coaster.

***MILLENNIUM FORCE***

I don't know what the ride time for WT is expected to be, but I know one thing about impulses...once the restraints are unlocked, the ride computer starts a clock. That counter has to reach 60 seconds before the train can be dispatched again. I know this from working on S:UE, and I would assume that the systems will be very similar if not identical. Even if the train is unloaded, loaded and the restraints checked in a timely manner, the crew still has to wait for the computer to allow them to dispatch. So the minimum for dispatch interval will be the ride time + 60 seconds.

Whatever the maximum is, I beleive the park will do their best to meet that number on a regular basis.

They can program the control system to do whatever they want. There's nothing set in stone about it.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com, Sillynonsense.com
"As far as I can tell it doesn't matter who you are. If you can believe, there's something worth fighting for..." - Garbage, "Parade"

I could envision that there IS a minimum cycle time on these coasters due to the LIMs. Not a cooling period, but rather a CHARGING period. How much power do these things draw? If a cycle requires a higher current spike than the mains can normally deliver, then you need to charge up to deliver said spike.

Now, that's not something that can't be worked around, either -- if you're willing to pay for it, just deliver a higher-capacity line to shorten the charging period.

This is all speculation, though -- anyone know for sure what the current requirements of the LIMs is?

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--Greg
"The collective women in your life have more baggage than a Samsonite factory..."
My page

Yo Andre...
Have you guys started training yet? It's all going to be about how many hosts you put on the train, so do you know what kind of staff is going to be working WT at a given time?

Like Rollski said on S:UE, once the restraints are unlocked there is a 60 sec. period you have to wait before you can dispatch the next train. From what I was told the 60 seconds was for the lims to cool off and another reason I'd rather not say. I hope for WT's capacity, Intamin has done something to improve upon this. If not the 6 ops checking bars at WT will have a pretty easy job. I've said it before, even with 2 barcheckers we had S:UE ready before the 60 seconds for nearly every launch the hour I was up there.

Consider something else...

WHICH LIMs are being given a chance to cool?

On S:UE, the place where I could see the greatest need for LIM cooling is the point where LIMs are operated at stall for half a second...because elsewhere you're not going to get a whole lot of heat build-up except in the station when the train is parked...and even that should be minimal.

But WT doesn't have LIMs operated at stall for half a second, so the cooling period might be unnecessary. Or if necessary, might be of a shorter duration.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I don't know impulse coasters too well. I don't really know LIMs that well. But I do know all about turning electricity into heat without your device melting.

If Cedar Point was willing to pay to have their LIMs have a cycle time of three seconds, three seconds could be delivered. It's all about cost. Just because other impulses require some particular amount of time to cool doesn't mean anything about WT. Just like you can build more or less as tall as you can pay for, you can cool a system more or less as quickly as you like. So it's farcical to say "well, X LIM application has a duty cycle of 30%, so all LIMs must have 30% duty cycles"

If they wanted it and were willing to pay for it, Cedar Point (or anyone else) could make an impulse that could run continuously, all day, with no cool-down period.