Screamscape - Monorail Expansion Rumor

[flynnibus]

I'm beginning to wonder if you've even been on the MarkVI trains. The space between two benches along the walls is only slightly narrower than the space between the existing benches

Slightly? Try 50% smaller in your own diagram. And you don't seem to understand how you need MORE room when you change the application of the space.

The problem you speak of, of people standing next to seated passengers most certainly exists with the current trains as they are now

But done differently and with more space. The game changes when you take away the space AND change the movement. The floor space today is the last thing to fill up.. and the seats are first. In your proposed design, people must pass by empty seats to go fill in the further seats. The lazy don't do this.. so they sit in the first seat.. then that limited space must be traversed by the people trying to get to the seats further down the line. That space is cramped by the people sitting. Add to that when people stand next to their party instead of sitting.. it gets even worse. And once the seats are taken, if you want to use the space for standing, there is less space than in the existing design, so the people standing are much closer to each other.. and then you have the butt/crotch too close to my face problem.

It's a fine design when you have space - its a miserable design when you try to force it into too small of an area and/or try to use all the floor space for standing capacity.

Also you seem to have this idea that I'm suggesting opening the car up so that people won't have to walk down the platform, this is completely ludicrous

No, I that's not what I was saying.. the problem is the same within the confines of a single car as well. People need to move ALL THE WAY IN and not just crowd at the door or first seats available. The problem is identical, just on a smaller scale.

If you just want to solve the 'move to the other half of the car' you could do so just a pass-through through the bench seats... and probably lose the same # of seats you are talking about now.

I don't have pictures.. but I am basing this on real world experience. The mobile lounges at Dulles use this design and it sucks because of the need to have people move in past people who sit first.. and there isn't enough room to do so comfortably when busy. They got smart with the newer lounges and just gutted the whole thing except for a few seats (again.. transportation vs coddling) but they still use the older design for the international flights. Opposing bench seats down a narrow aisle.. and trying to stuff the lounge full = people never moving down.. bags in faces.. staring at crotches.. etc.

Take the design off paper.. and look at practical implementations. It will be fine when lightly loaded.. but it will lead to inferior customer experience when heavily loaded.

 

[PhilharMagician]

Isn't this seating already done on many of the newer gen busses in WDW? I do not have dims to compare the width of a monorail and bus, but the seating works fine in the bus. People sit across from each other and others can walk up and down the bus without tripping and falling.

 

[nace888]

I'm beginning to wonder if you've even been on the MarkVI trains. The space between two benches along the walls is only slightly narrower than the space between the existing benches. The problem you speak of, of people standing next to seated passengers most certainly exists with the current trains as they are now. Also you seem to have this idea that I'm suggesting opening the car up so that people won't have to walk down the platform, this is completely ludicrous. Of course people will need to disperse along the platform, but in the situations where they haven't dispersed perfectly evenly and one side of the train fills up but the other doesn't than they will have an option. This happens all the time with the current trains.

:sohappy::sohappy::sohappy:

 

[ryanduggers]

This thread makes my head hurt.

these are the facts as I understand them:

1. monorails need more capacity on existing lines.
2, they can't get longer unless major work is done on each station (expensive)
3. they can't get longer cars because of the radius of the track.
4. they can't get wider cars because of the infrastucture. (expensive to fix)

These problems can be fixed on a new line to DTD or Studios, but you are stuck with what you have on the old line.

To answer to the problems on the existing line are not shifting the seats, its building MORE monorails & storage tracks in the barn & increasing the frequency of stops.

As a designer, the simplest idea is usually the best one..

armchair designers need not apply.....:brick:

 

[Master Yoda]

This thread makes my head hurt.

these are the facts as I understand them:

1. monorails need more capacity on existing lines.
2, they can't get longer unless major work is done on each station (expensive)
3. they can't get longer cars because of the radius of the track.
4. they can't get wider cars because of the infrastucture. (expensive to fix)

These problems can be fixed on a new line to DTD or Studios, but you are stuck with what you have on the old line.

To answer to the problems on the existing line are not shifting the seats, its building MORE monorails & storage tracks in the barn & increasing the frequency of stops.

As a designer, the simplest idea is usually the best one..

armchair designers need not apply.....:brick:

This is pretty much it. Is there any reason you could not run three trains per rail?

 

[WDWFREAK53]

Even in this photo with these people relaxing with their feet stretched out you can see that there is clearly plenty of space.

My point is the configuration I suggested is MORE open than the current design, allows movement between the two sections and only eliminates two seats. I think it's a win win.

I don't see anybody in those seats :lookaroun

 

[nace888]

Okay... So, the stations would have to be extended by 30 feet (that is the 28 feet of one car and the 2 feet of accordians between cars), I dunno how you'd be able to expand the Contemporary, but that's 30 feet for the other 6? stations.. Plus you'd have to extend Monorail Shop by 40 feet to ensure beam room and support the length of the 7 car trains... Then you'd have to expand the shop out by at least 5 beams... I personally think a monorail expansion is a GOOD IDEA, but I think the trains need to be redone, as well as keeping them in a 6 car format... We don't need to add cars. If things were done right, there'd be no problems. As for extending the route, use trams. They are long enough, use them... They can make tight turns. If you don't wanna expand the monorail, make tram lines.

 

[ryanduggers]

This is pretty much it. Is there any reason you could not run three trains per rail?

Not that I can see, but who knows. It would seem to be a software or procedure issue. Those problems seem to go away fast if there is a will to do something. There doesnt seem to be a weight problem unless the monorails are humping.......:ROFLOL:

 

[flynnibus]

This is pretty much it. Is there any reason you could not run three trains per rail?

Such things are ultimately defined by your control block system and your intended spacing between trains. Add into that station cycle time so trains don't 'hurry up and wait' constantly. Those are your limits to adding more trains running to the same line.

It's basically the same thing as rollercoaster design... but you can use a moving block system instead of a fixed block system. But you still have blocks and keeping trains out of forbidden blocks.

Efficiency is reached by keeping the max amount of trains within the safe blocks moving at all times. Just like coasters.. you can have cascades when station load/unload doesn't go to plan. But unlike rollercoasters.. as each vehicle is self powered.. there is no need to 'reset' all the vehicles in motion.. just let each vehicle start up as the blocks allow and space them back out as intended.

 

[s8film40]

Slightly? Try 50% smaller in your own diagram. And you don't seem to understand how you need MORE room when you change the application of the space.

It's only about two feet shorter not 50%, and it is significantly larger than space between seats used to be with the original design with the fold down seats. What I fail to understand is why it matters how much standing space there is between seats. No matter what when you are seated you are going to have people standing in front of you, I don't see a way around this.

But done differently and with more space. The game changes when you take away the space AND change the movement. The floor space today is the last thing to fill up.. and the seats are first. In your proposed design, people must pass by empty seats to go fill in the further seats. The lazy don't do this.. so they sit in the first seat.. then that limited space must be traversed by the people trying to get to the seats further down the line. That space is cramped by the people sitting. Add to that when people stand next to their party instead of sitting.. it gets even worse. And once the seats are taken, if you want to use the space for standing, there is less space than in the existing design, so the people standing are much closer to each other.. and then you have the butt/crotch too close to my face problem.

It's a fine design when you have space - its a miserable design when you try to force it into too small of an area and/or try to use all the floor space for standing capacity.

You seem to think that opening these seats up creates a long passageway that people will need to walk down, but actually it just opens the space up more. People will walk in either head for the outer seats as it is set up now, or head to the center seats along the sides and then all of the standing room will fill up.

No, I that's not what I was saying.. the problem is the same within the confines of a single car as well. People need to move ALL THE WAY IN and not just crowd at the door or first seats available. The problem is identical, just on a smaller scale.

If you just want to solve the 'move to the other half of the car' you could do so just a pass-through through the bench seats... and probably lose the same # of seats you are talking about now.

I don't have pictures.. but I am basing this on real world experience. The mobile lounges at Dulles use this design and it sucks because of the need to have people move in past people who sit first.. and there isn't enough room to do so comfortably when busy. They got smart with the newer lounges and just gutted the whole thing except for a few seats (again.. transportation vs coddling) but they still use the older design for the international flights. Opposing bench seats down a narrow aisle.. and trying to stuff the lounge full = people never moving down.. bags in faces.. staring at crotches.. etc.

Take the design off paper.. and look at practical implementations. It will be fine when lightly loaded.. but it will lead to inferior customer experience when heavily loaded.

Obviously in the overall picture this would be just a minor improvement. I really don't see any issues with it and every "problem" you manage to think up against it is completely invalid. The Las Vegas trains use a similar more open plan with the same exact spaces and it works just fine and much better than WDW's design. The WDW design was originally intended to allow for almost the same amount of seating as the Mark IV's with the flexibility to fold the seats up to allow more standing. Over the years they have reached the conclusion that the more open plan works better for the WDW application. I have actually talked with WDW monorail maintenance about this very modification and in fact the only reason this hasn't been done is they don't want to spend the money to relocate the electronics under the seats.

 

[nace888]

We'll do it this way then: Cars 1, 3, 4, and 6 will have seating on either end (like normal) and seating on the sides next to the windows. The center seat will stay the same but the middle will be hollowed out like this...
|======| This turning into this. |==| |==| This is for cars 1, 3, 4, and 6. It allows for the guests to be able to easily move from one side of the car to the other, and the guests still get the forward/back seats for filming or whatnot...

Then cars 2 and 5 are "standing room only" cars which will have seats on either end of the car and that's it. The rest is plainly standing room for the guests, as well as open room for strollers or wheelchairs. Diagrams will come soon, hopefully.

 

[flavious27]

Okay... So, the stations would have to be extended by 30 feet (that is the 28 feet of one car and the 2 feet of accordians between cars), I dunno how you'd be able to expand the Contemporary, but that's 30 feet for the other 6? stations.. Plus you'd have to extend Monorail Shop by 40 feet to ensure beam room and support the length of the 7 car trains... Then you'd have to expand the shop out by at least 5 beams... I personally think a monorail expansion is a GOOD IDEA, but I think the trains need to be redone, as well as keeping them in a 6 car format... We don't need to add cars. If things were done right, there'd be no problems. As for extending the route, use trams. They are long enough, use them... They can make tight turns. If you don't wanna expand the monorail, make tram lines.

Well the current length of the whole train is 200 feet, the contemp is about 400 feet long, no problems there.

Trams as an alternative to monorails sounds like a cheaper alternative to buses. I don't have a problem with that because it would set the foundation literally to having prts at wdw.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Trams as an alternative to monorails sounds like a cheaper alternative to buses. I don't have a problem with that because it would set the foundation literally to having prts at wdw.

I think in this case tram means streetcar, not what we see in the parking lots, which are not cheaper than buses. Besides, would they be that much different than the bus experience except that they cannot deviate from their path?

As much as I love transit systems, I am not keen on the clutter of infrastructure that any expansion would require. Unfortunately Walt Disney World was not developed in a manner conducive to a few lines of mass movement.

 

[flavious27]

I think in this case tram means streetcar, not what we see in the parking lots, which are not cheaper than buses. Besides, would they be that much different than the bus experience except that they cannot deviate from their path?

As much as I love transit systems, I am not keen on the clutter of infrastructure that any expansion would require. Unfortunately Walt Disney World was not developed in a manner conducive to a few lines of mass movement.

So something like this:

Yeah that is not going to cost less than a bus, it is a bus.

Well it matters how it is built and where it is run, but it can be uncluttered looking and or out of sight from roads and or hotels. It can be just a single lane road with bumpers on the side.

The advantage of these lanes is that the buses or trams do not have to slow down for traffic. If they switch over to prts, the system can offer a customized system, almost like large taxis.

There are alternatives to building one or more monorail lines, and they are for the most part cheaper to build and operate.

 

[nace888]

I think in this case tram means streetcar, not what we see in the parking lots, which are not cheaper than buses. Besides, would they be that much different than the bus experience except that they cannot deviate from their path?

As much as I love transit systems, I am not keen on the clutter of infrastructure that any expansion would require. Unfortunately Walt Disney World was not developed in a manner conducive to a few lines of mass movement.

Actualy, I was talking about the Parking Lot Trams...