Monorail expansion

[trr1]

A way to expand and connect most of the resorts, studios and the future Florida high speed rail station.

shouldnt there be another shop on the studio line?

 

[flavious27]

shouldnt there be another shop on the studio line?

If AK gets added as a stop, it would need its own line with the value resorts and typhoon stations being added to that line. Also a stop would be added to Coronado Springs.

Edit: I thought you said stop, not shop. Yes there will need to be a new shop added to the southern portion of this plan. A shop can be built off the epcot line, it would make sense will all three lines coming together at the new ttc.

 

[parkgoer]

shouldnt there be another shop on the studio line?

as much as i want disney to expand the monorail, I look at this and know why. What a pain in the a**. just put some more buses out there...

 

[s8film40]

I think the key to expanding the monorail system is in simplifying it. This was the basis behind my design. One extension combines all four parks into one route, as a guest you would know once on the express monorail you can travel to any park. Then running the resort transportation from the area park only I think there would be a greater emphasis on what hotels are part of what resort area, then as a guest as long as you know what resort area the hotel your trying to get to is you know what stop to get off at. Of course you would also have automated spiels, maps, etc. ("This is the MK station, this stop is for MK, CO, PO, GF, WL, and FW")

Also simplifying the bus system in the process makes it easier for guests to understand how to get where they are going, if they come out of their hotel and all they have to do is take one bus then they don't have to think about it.

When you list out the bus routes you can get a feel for how this would simplify things.


Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge
Board bus to AK -> Board Express monorail for all destinations except AK hotels
Disney's Beach Club Resort
No bus service - Board Express monorail for all destinations except EC hotels
Disney's BoardWalk Inn
No bus service - Board Express monorail for all destinations except EC hotels
Disney's Contemporary Resort
No bus service - Board Resort monorail, transfer to Express monorail at MK
Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa
No bus service - Board Resort monorail, transfer to Express monorail at MK
Disney's Polynesian Resort
No bus service - Board Resort monorail, transfer to Express monorail at MK
Disney's Wilderness Lodge
Board boat to MK -> Board Express monorail for all destinations except MK hotels
Disney's Yacht Club Resort
No bus service - Board Express monorail for all destinations except EC hotels
Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort
Board bus to HS -> Board Express monorail for all destinations except HS hotels
Disney's Coronado Springs Resort
Board bus to HS -> Board Express monorail for all destinations except HS hotels
Disney's Port Orleans Resort French Quarter
Board bus to EC -> Board Express monorail for all destinations except EC hotels
Disney's Port Orleans Resort Riverside
Board bus to EC -> Board Express monorail for all destinations except EC hotels
Disney's Pop Century Resort
Board bus to EC -> Board Express monorail for all destinations except EC hotels
Disney's All-Star Movies Resort
Disney's All-Star Music Resort
Disney's All-Star Sports Resort
Board bus to AK -> Board Express monorail for all destinations except AK hotels
Disney's Art of Animation Resort (2012)
Board bus to EC -> Board Express monorail for all destinations except EC hotels
Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground
Board boat to MK -> Board Express monorail for all destinations except MK hotels
Disney's Old Key West Resort
Board bus to EC -> Board Express monorail for all destinations except EC hotels
Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa (including the Treehouse Villas)
Board bus to EC -> Board Express monorail for all destinations except EC hotels


If an expansion to one line can eliminate hundreds of bus routes I think it's worth it.

 

[DougK]

as much as i want disney to expand the monorail, I look at this and know why. What a pain in the a**. just put some more buses out there...

Not quite the visionary that ol' Walt was, are you? :wave:

 

[TimeTrip]

If an expansion to one line can eliminate hundreds of bus routes I think it's worth it.

Aside from the transfer issue, I think there is another bad assumption in this statement. You're implying that one line can handle the passenger load that hundreds of bus routes do. My gut tells me that one line would not be able to support the # of passengers at once that the bus system currently supports. This is especially true if you count that fact that a train for people riding from the MK area to AK will take up space for people that would also be needed for bunches of other people that are heading from MK resorts to Epcot/DHS, Epcot resorts to DHS/AK and DHS resorts to AK. That pattern can be applied quite a number of ways. Just look at the problems that the bus system iteslf has when there are multiple stops shared on the route like at the All Star resorts.

If you ran some numbers to guesstimate passenger loads, I'd be very curious as to what you come up with.

 

[s8film40]

Aside from the transfer issue, I think there is another bad assumption in this statement. You're implying that one line can handle the passenger load that hundreds of bus routes do. My gut tells me that one line would not be able to support the # of passengers at once that the bus system currently supports. This is especially true if you count that fact that a train for people riding from the MK area to AK will take up space for people that would also be needed for bunches of other people that are heading from MK resorts to Epcot/DHS, Epcot resorts to DHS/AK and DHS resorts to AK. That pattern can be applied quite a number of ways. Just look at the problems that the bus system iteslf has when there are multiple stops shared on the route like at the All Star resorts.

If you ran some numbers to guesstimate passenger loads, I'd be very curious as to what you come up with.

The transfer issue will always be there, I don't think anything could be as bad as the transfer issue the buses have.

As it stands right now the current monorail system transports about as many passengers as the whole bus system. The problem is that all this transportation for the most part is wasted on serving a park and ride operation. My design was to eliminate the park and ride so that that passenger load could be used for real transportation. Additionally by expanding the line and converting and adding more trains it would expand the monorail system capacity. Also increasing the efficiency of the trips would reduce a lot of the wasted transportation that exists now. For example now a guest traveling from AK Lodge to Pop century after dinner would travel by bus to either MK or DTD then transfer to their hotel bus. In either case they are traveling in completely different directions from where they need to go and Disney has to transport this guest much further than they actually need to travel. If you have a system that can quickly get people close to where they need to go and then work from there it's quicker more efficient and less time is spent transporting each guest that will result in shorter wait times and less waste in system capacity.

My idea to handle the effect of multiple stations and trains being full would be to have in each station unload only area some trains would only drop off this way they would have more room for certain stops. If they went with the Las Vegas style configuration of 4 car trains and 8 car long stations they could easily have trains stop in two different areas. So if a train filled up at AK it could unload only at each stop until there is room, at the same time a train would unload only at AK and then load with plenty of room at the next stop.

 

[Yensid40]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDjlU_MPdS8

Had to...

 

[TimeTrip]

The transfer issue will always be there, I don't think anything could be as bad as the transfer issue the buses have.

Do the majority of bus users face transfers? My current impression is that the majority of bus traffic is from HOTEL to PARK and vice versa. There are NO transfers there. You get into some funky issues when talking MK and park hopping.. but like I said, my impression is that most use is HOTEL <-> PARK. So I'm not sure I buy your "as bad as the transfer issues the busses have" statement.

As it stands right now the current monorail system transports about as many passengers as the whole bus system.

Is that true? What are the numbers you're using here?

 

[lazyboy97o]

Not quite the visionary that ol' Walt was, are you? :wave:

Walt Disney planned for a north-south monorail that would have four stops, running north to south:
1. Theme Park Area - connections unknown
2. EPCOT - connections to the suburb bound WEDway PeopleMovers and pedestrian walkways.
3. Industrial Park of the Future - connections unknown
4. Airport of the Future

Disney World, as it was being imagined in Walt Disney's head, was a vastly different beast than the modern Walt Disney World Resort. Walt had the monorail connecting the greater distances via at the four major areas, not at each and every little thing.

 

[Tom]

Do the majority of bus users face transfers? My current impression is that the majority of bus traffic is from HOTEL to PARK and vice versa. There are NO transfers there. You get into some funky issues when talking MK and park hopping.. but like I said, my impression is that most use is HOTEL <-> PARK. So I'm not sure I buy your "as bad as the transfer issues the busses have" statement.

Exactly. If you're going PARK-PARK or RESORT-PARK, you have 0 transfers. If you're going RESORT-RESORT you'll have 1 transfer at a park or DTD. If PARK-DTD, you'll have 1 transfer at a resort.

Additionally, once you get on the bus, the next time it stops will be at your destination (or transfer point). No sitting on a multi-stop train (ala subway) for 45 minutes while you go from MK to AJ (the furthest trip between parks).

 

[s8film40]

Do the majority of bus users face transfers? My current impression is that the majority of bus traffic is from HOTEL to PARK and vice versa. There are NO transfers there. You get into some funky issues when talking MK and park hopping.. but like I said, my impression is that most use is HOTEL <-> PARK. So I'm not sure I buy your "as bad as the transfer issues the busses have" statement.

Well if your just going to parks from your hotel yes it's pretty straight forward, but the bus system is so strained that wait times can be pretty bad and many bus routes make quite a few stops. In this case I would much rather take a very short bus ride to the closest park and then take a quick monorail ride to whatever park I wanted to go to. The biggest issue with the bus system is hotel to hotel, and yes a lot of people do travel between hotels. Dining at hotel restaurants is very popular just try to make a reservation and you will see this.

Is that true? What are the numbers you're using here?

This is a little outdated, but gives you an idea. The monorail system capacity is around 200,000 per day the current average bus ridership is around 160,000. The current monorail system is easily capable of handling the full average ridership of buses.

Disney currently has 72 monorail cars, I would say that if they expanded the system to somewhere around 100 to 150 cars they could easily increase the capacity to somewhere around 300,000 to 400,000.

 

[s8film40]

Exactly. If you're going PARK-PARK or RESORT-PARK, you have 0 transfers. If you're going RESORT-RESORT you'll have 1 transfer at a park or DTD. If PARK-DTD, you'll have 1 transfer at a resort.

Additionally, once you get on the bus, the next time it stops will be at your destination (or transfer point). No sitting on a multi-stop train (ala subway) for 45 minutes while you go from MK to AJ (the furthest trip between parks).

If you board a MK bus at the Swan/Dolphin the MK will be stop number 4 and it will probably take you about 30 minutes to get there not including your potential 20 minute wait.

Transfers are inevitable with any system, the transfers with the current bus system are some of the worst. Most guests opt to take a taxi with the current bus system transfers, I see it every day.

 

[Tom]

If you board a MK bus at the Swan/Dolphin the MK will be stop number 4 and it will probably take you about 30 minutes to get there not including your potential 20 minute wait.

Transfers are inevitable with any system, the transfers with the current bus system are some of the worst. Most guests opt to take a taxi with the current bus system transfers, I see it every day.

Hey now, the S&D don't count, because we all know they're not "real" Disney hotels

I would always be the first to jump on the anti-current-Disney-bus-system bandwagon, because it's pathetic, at best. You're right about a number of (experienced) guests needing to transfer between resorts for dining. However, using a monorail and then a bus won't eliminate that 1 required transfer.

When it comes down to it, I imagine you could buy 20 new buses for every mile of new monorail track (assuming the tossed around number of $10 million/mile and a guess of $500,000 per bus). Another 4 miles of track would pay for a year of the bus drivers for those 20 buses (assuming 2 shifts a day, per bus, at $50k/year/driver).

What I'm getting at is, no matter how many ways we look at it, the return-on-investment from a monorail expansion would be upside down. The only way to measure its value is by guest satisfaction (by ensuring you don't make them mad enough to never come back because of the transportation), and if they just made their bus system work (for a lot less money than any sort of monorail project), guest satisfaction would improve and the perceived ROI would be much greater.

 

[s8film40]

Hey now, the S&D don't count, because we all know they're not "real" Disney hotels

I would always be the first to jump on the anti-current-Disney-bus-system bandwagon, because it's pathetic, at best. You're right about a number of (experienced) guests needing to transfer between resorts for dining. However, using a monorail and then a bus won't eliminate that 1 required transfer.

When it comes down to it, I imagine you could buy 20 new buses for every mile of new monorail track (assuming the tossed around number of $10 million/mile and a guess of $500,000 per bus). Another 4 miles of track would pay for a year of the bus drivers for those 20 buses (assuming 2 shifts a day, per bus, at $50k/year/driver).

What I'm getting at is, no matter how many ways we look at it, the return-on-investment from a monorail expansion would be upside down. The only way to measure its value is by guest satisfaction (by ensuring you don't make them mad enough to never come back because of the transportation), and if they just made their bus system work (for a lot less money than any sort of monorail project), guest satisfaction would improve and the perceived ROI would be much greater.

If you look at the chart I made above with my design that bus transfer only exists for about half of the hotels. You could also still run direct buses to the parks but my guess would be that it would be faster to take the bus to the closes park and then ride monorail so I don't think anyone would bother riding a direct bus.

And I can say that I have personally seen quite a few guests say that the biggest flaw in all of WDW is the bus system and that they would not return because of it.

 

[Tom]

And I can say that I have personally seen quite a few guests say that the biggest flaw in all of WDW is the bus system and that they would not return because of it.

Currently, I agree with those guests (except that it won't stop me from going to WDW). They have an extremely elaborate GPS-based dispatch system in the palm of their hands, yet they still have a "guy in a van" tell buses where to go at park closing time. And as many people will attest, either that guy's judgement, or the judgement of the people telling him where to send buses, is extremely flawed.

I pine for the day when they put the Magic In Motion system to the test and use it for what it was designed for. Properly assess the queues across property, tell the computer which ones have had people waiting for more than 10 min, and dispatch a bus accordingly. GPS can tell the driver where to go next, and change his sign for him (they sort of do this now).

But, we're talking about monorails here. Sorry for the mini soapbox.

 

[TP2000]

Walt Disney planned for a north-south monorail that would have four stops, running north to south:
1. Theme Park Area - connections unknown
2. EPCOT - connections to the suburb bound WEDway PeopleMovers and pedestrian walkways.
3. Industrial Park of the Future - connections unknown
4. Airport of the Future

Disney World, as it was being imagined in Walt Disney's head, was a vastly different beast than the modern Walt Disney World Resort. Walt had the monorail connecting the greater distances via at the four major areas, not at each and every little thing.

Thank you! So nice to know I'm not the only one who knows Walt Disney was envisioning a dramatically different Disney World on his deathbed in late '66 compared to the actual thing that got built five years later.

The EPCOT '66 film is still available on YouTube, but it can be a bit depressing to watch for hardcore Disney World fans. Especially that part where Walt points to the "amusement theme park" that is literally a cut-and-paste version of Disneyland circa 1966.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U140BeMOo1s

 

[TimeTrip]

This is a little outdated, but gives you an idea. The monorail system capacity is around 200,000 per day the current average bus ridership is around 160,000. The current monorail system is easily capable of handling the full average ridership of buses.

Disney currently has 72 monorail cars, I would say that if they expanded the system to somewhere around 100 to 150 cars they could easily increase the capacity to somewhere around 300,000 to 400,000.

I'm still a little wary of thinking your design could handle what is happening in the scenario where a monorail needs to carry large quantities of people to multiple parks within one train.

What would be an intersesting number comparison (if someone has it), is how many people leave the MK via the busses either at the main gate or the TTC after riding the monorail to get there, and compare that to the number of people that use the resort monorail to return to GF, Poly, CR, or BLT. Is the current capacity of the resort beam generally too much? Too little?

Now imagine having just one other beam to service all the people that could go to any of the other Disney resorts. Thats 16+(?) hotels to service instead of just 4. Seems to me that around peak times, that beam would be overloaded. Busses are very flexible when it comes to adding capacity around peak times, whereas monorails (at WDW in their current incarnation) are not.

 

[s8film40]

I'm still a little wary of thinking your design could handle what is happening in the scenario where a monorail needs to carry large quantities of people to multiple parks within one train.

What would be an intersesting number comparison (if someone has it), is how many people leave the MK via the busses either at the main gate or the TTC after riding the monorail to get there, and compare that to the number of people that use the resort monorail to return to GF, Poly, CR, or BLT. Is the current capacity of the resort beam generally too much? Too little?

Now imagine having just one other beam to service all the people that could go to any of the other Disney resorts. Thats 16+(?) hotels to service instead of just 4. Seems to me that around peak times, that beam would be overloaded. Busses are very flexible when it comes to adding capacity around peak times, whereas monorails (at WDW in their current incarnation) are not.

Lets go through some completely hypothetical numbers (for a lack of real numbers). Now lets say it's an average busy day at the MK and it's closing at 10PM with 25,000 people in the park. I think it's fair to assume that half will have parked at the MK parking garage and will walk or ride the tram over. That now leaves us with 12,500 people. There are 5 MK area resorts who's guests will not need to take the express monorail, that's probably about 1/4 of the remaining 12,500 that will leave us with a little under 10,000. So now we need the express monorail to transport 10,000 people to the other destinations. Now an Innovia 200 monorail capacity per car is 75 passengers. So that will mean it will take 134 cars to accommodate all passengers. If trains come 4 cars at a time that would be 34 trains or in eight car train configurations it would be 17 trains.

On a typical night at the MK the current express monorail will operate at full capacity for about an hour after the park closes. Generally six car trains are two minutes apart. thats about 20-30 six car trains in one hour or 120 - 180 cars in an hour.

All in all I think it would work out about as busy as the current express monorail.

 

[flavious27]

as much as i want disney to expand the monorail, I look at this and know why. What a pain in the a**. just put some more buses out there...

because we love the monorails and it is what makes wdw so special.