How is Ride Duration Measured?

This has been bugging me for a while. At what points on the ride do they start and stop the time when they measure how long the ride lasts? Is it from the top of the lift to the brakes, the station to the brakes, or what?

time of release from station to time of station entry.

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I am one.
I am Turbo.
Top Thrill in the front row... anything else is lame
X...Whoa

I'd say it's measured arbitrarily.

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--Maddie--
What do I Listen-To?
Hot stuff.

Probably from the beginning of motion to the end (stopped in the final unloading position).

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"I go out at 3 o' clock for a quart of milk and come home to my son treating his body like an amusement park!" - Estelle Costanza

With a broken watch. Most parks include every moment between the time you sit down until the time you stand up.

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-Rob
A.C.E. member since 1990
Posting @ Coasterbuzz since 2000
E.C.C. member since 2002

This is how *I* measure ride duration:

Good ride....it's too short.
Bad ride....it's too long.

Every other method seems to contain wide fluctuations depending on who's reporting...;)
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Mistakes were made, others are to blame...

If I bothered to do such a thing, I'd do it from the dispatch until the final brakes.

Since I don't do that, I'll go with rollergator.

-Jason, who never realized just how long Riddler is until I rode in the front row during a really cold rain.

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SCREAM with me... in 2003!

Nitro's signage says it's 4 miuntes long. They must measure the time you sit down on the train, go around the course, get up, run down the ramp, around the path, come through the queue, run back up the stairs and plop your butt down on another train.

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Be polite and ignore the idiots. - rollergator
"It's not a Toomer" - Arnold Schwartzenkoph
"Those who know don't talk and those who talk don't know." -Jeff

Actually, Andy, out of sheer morbid curiosity, I did time the ride once from dispatch to lap bar release, and it came out to about four minutes, which must be where they get the figure from. The actual length of the ride, from dispatch to end brakes, including the lift hill (which is a little less than a minute) was about three minutes long. Although, if there's no stacking going on, I'd really like to know where that extra minute comes from...

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[Nitro Dave -- 145 Laps] [Track Record: 89 and counting...]
Princeton University -- Class of 2007
In the Nation's Service, and in the Service of All Nations

Must have been 3:02 or something... rounding makes that 4 minutes ;)

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-Rob
A.C.E. member since 1990
Posting @ Coasterbuzz since 2000
E.C.C. member since 2002

The title of this thread just begs to be hi-jacked........

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Rob Ascough said:
With a broken watch. Most parks include every moment between the time you sit down until the time you stand up.

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This is how SFOG does it. In 2002, SUF was labled as a 4+ minute ride.

I think the system is fairer for other coasters. GASM is right at 2 minutes for one average cycle.