Screamscape - Monorail Expansion Rumor

[s8film40]

But you are applying that as 'monorails I'll wait for'

When that distaste is not for bus vs monorail but actually 'System-A that arrives every 5min and System-B that arrives every 20mins'

It's the cycle/wait time people are showing the affinity for - not the transportation mode itself.

This is the exact point I'm making monorails are consistently and just about in every implementation in the world only a 5 minute or less wait this is why most people like them. I'm not saying monorails need to go everywhere but if they take care of the longer distance routes they can leave the buses to do very short cycles andd reduce their wait/travel time as well. So if I want to go from MK to AKL and I can wait 2 minutes for a monorail that takes 10-15 minutes to get to DAK then transfer to a bus that I wait 5 minutes for that then takes 5 minutes to get to my resort this is better that waiting 15 minutes for a bus that takes 20 minutes to take me directly to my resort. Waiting time always seems longer to the guests perspective than travel time so even in a worst case scenario if it works out the same in the end most guests are going to be happier.

 

[orky8]

Bingo! I'll take a freaking rickshaw that is waiting for me over a gleaming white monorail that arrives every 20 minutes.

Very excellent point, and part of the reason the 40 year old technology should be upgraded. If automated, there should be a countdown clock at each station telling you exactly when the next monorail will depart and that clock should be no more than 3 minutes during peak times and 5 minutes the rest of the time. Just like at airports, such as Dallas, Orlando, or SFO with the automated train systes, that is how the monorail should and could operate if automated.

 

[Master Yoda]

This could have been mentioned or suggested earlier in the thread, but I have not read all20-some pages of it. I apologize in advance if I am about to suggest something that someone else has already posted about.

Earlier in this thread and in the past, different people have suggested some sort of individualized transportation method where a family or a small group people could enter some sort of vehicle and tell it where to go and the vehicle will plot the shortest route from their location to their destination and get them there, on demand. When there is greater demand, more vehicles would be added to the system, and vice versa when demand dictates. I do not know exactly how the system works and the actual mechanics of how the vehicles get from pint A to point B. (Are the mini-monorails? Are they at ground level or elevated, etc.)

I think an interesting solution to the issue would be to overlay the monorail system with this on-demand sort of idea. If you build a netwrok of monorail beams around the resort, its a lot like building a network of "highways" or a network of "rails" for that on-deman system. The additional beams wouldn't need to be a loop necessarily. If Disney can find a better way to handle track switches (making them safer and faster), they could run any number of trains and get people anywhere in the resort without requiring a transfer to a different route or a different mode of transportation at all.

For example, imagine the monorail beams of the Epcot loop have been extended southwartd along World Drive as far as the area around the Wide world of Sports. there is another beamway built along Osceola Parkway between Animal Kingdom Lodge and Pop Century (including a stop at Animal Kingdom among other things. Imagine you are at AK and want to get to MK. you board a monorail at AK and it travels along the Osceola beamway and automatically transfers to the extended world Drive beamway without requiring you to transfer. It then travels north along World Drive to the TTC, switches beans again to the MK loop and bingo, you're at the MK without once leaving the train you boarded at AK.

If there's a way to handle track switches afely while having guests on board the monorails, the monorail beams don't have to be loops at all. that would make the entire system a lot more flexible and more efficient. It's just like building roads, just elevated and with big trains instead of cars and buses.

adding all of these spur routes and eveloping a much safer system would take some time and a great deal of money, though, so this whole thing is probably cost-rpohibitive, sadly.

This is the general idea.

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2008/10/personal-pod-1/

 

[flynnibus]

My post, directly above yours (direct to Flynnibus), states IT WILL NOT SOLVE ALL THE TRANSPORTATION ISSUES. last time it was not all caps.

Ok, so you just want to build a new attraction.. sinking a billion plus into a system that still doesn't help the majority of guests.

Wow.. and people are up in arms when WDW doesn't get a new attraction.. you want to tie up capital reserves for pet projects that ignore the issues bringing customer down daily?

Do you not see the absurdity in this? Sounds like Nero and Rome burning to me...

When was the last time anyone saw major backups trying to park hop? Why do you guys think park hopping is in such dire need of fixing?

The thing that meets your total solution is either a personal vehicle ala Incredibles, and who knows how much that would cost or if it is even doable (but would be wicked awesome), or a transporter device, ala Star Trek, which would be even cooler.

No - the solution can be just about anything. The problem outline doesn't and shouldn't dictate the solution. It's how you judge proposed solutions and if they fit the actual need.

Please explain to me why it would be bad to expand the monorails if both of these are true: 1) monorails to all four parks and Epcot resorts would increase revenue by $100 million / year and 2) would cost $1 billion.

Because I'd rather spend that money actually improving the guest experience in transportation or if you want to turn a blind eye to those problems, use that money to build actual attractions.

This is the exact point I'm making monorails are consistently and just about in every implementation in the world only a 5 minute or less wait this is why most people like them

But such cycles are not UNIQUE to monorails - so again, you gotta focus on the actual desired thing.. not what you think can fit it. Because that simply limits you and skews your thinking.

The monorail could be as slow as buses too - but the cycle time is due to the implementation, not the technology.

You're cherry picking and making things 'owned' by monorails when its not about monorails at all.

 

[Kamikaze]

My post, directly above yours (direct to Flynnibus), states IT WILL NOT SOLVE ALL THE TRANSPORTATION ISSUES. last time it was not all caps.

It doesn't solve ANY transportation issues.

You've identified very real problems, and then stated what the total solution will be. The thing that meets your total solution is either a personal vehicle ala Incredibles, and who knows how much that would cost or if it is even doable (but would be wicked awesome), or a transporter device, ala Star Trek, which would be even cooler.

Or more buses, with bus only roads - or many other solutions, such as PRT - or a peoplemover system.

Ok, so. Now that we understand we can't address all the problems.

Yes we can, just not with a system in the way you have it outlined.

There is no panacea here. Please explain to me why it would be bad to expand the monorails if both of these are true: 1) monorails to all four parks and Epcot resorts would increase revenue by $100 million / year and 2) would cost $1 billion.

Both of those are false. It wouldn't increase revenue at all - raising prices would. The system itself would not, unless they added a fee to ride. And I think $1b is a very low estimate for the amount of work.

Now, I don't know that they are true. But you asked for numbers, I gave you numbers, explaining why I thought it was true. I can't solve all the transportation problems. I am only proposing to solve them from the MK and Epcot resorts and betweent the four theme parks. But this limited solution, to a piece of the problems, seems doable, and even financially to be a pretty good idea.

Except for that it isn't.

Why aren't we talking about safety? I mentioned it a few pages back, but it didn't get any response. Is that because there is no argument against the Monorail's safety record? What is the dollar amount on someones life? Do you really trust the old man behind the wheel of 40,000 lb bus exclusively with your childrens life? I don't. Especially with the way the other people who are lost out there drive.

I love the idea of being able to park my car and park hop without ever touching it again, but like others have said, if my only option is bus, I don't go. I know for a fact that I'm not the only one who feels and acts this way.

Safety is obviously better on a monorail than a bus, just because of the fact that you're taking a lot of risk out of the system. However, the safety record for WDW buses is pretty damn good. Introducing bus-only roads or bus-only sections of roads would only increase the safety. Is a monorail going to still be safer? Sure.

This is the exact point I'm making monorails are consistently and just about in every implementation in the world only a 5 minute or less wait this is why most people like them.

So tell me this: On this 'super-awesome monorail line' that runs to all 4 parks and various hubs, how many trains would you need to guarantee a 5 minute or less wait?

 

[Gregoryp73]

You don't have to buy it - because what you said is not how the buses operate for one. And two, reality is, guests board the buses at MK instead of riding the monorail to the TTC to ride buses. Because they prefer the direct, more efficient route of the bus, over riding the monorail, to just transfer again.

And your data to back this up?

 

[wickedfan07]

This is the general idea.

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2008/10/personal-pod-1/

Thank you for the link!

This really seems like something that could be very useful for WDW. Maybe a different option than having a system of entirely small pods would be to have monorail-like trains (the standard 12 or maybe even more) to handle big routes like park-to-park routes, and leave the smaller pods to do park-to-resort or resort-to-resort travel.

As far as financing it goes, where's all that revenue from parking fees going? Redirect it onto a new PRT fund and after a while there would probably be enough money to fund a resort-wide PRT system, especially if they built it in phases. (What is the parking fee these days?)

Either make the existing monorail system bigger and more like the PRT or scrap the whole monorail system and just make the new PRT vehicles themselves look like the monorails. It's really Monorail+ anyway.

 

[s8film40]

But such cycles are not UNIQUE to monorails - so again, you gotta focus on the actual desired thing.. not what you think can fit it. Because that simply limits you and skews your thinking.

The monorail could be as slow as buses too - but the cycle time is due to the implementation, not the technology.

You're cherry picking and making things 'owned' by monorails when its not about monorails at all.

This is where I'm coming from, I think the biggest issue with transporation at WDW is the length of time it takes to get from point a to point b and secondly that buses seem to be used in areas that have large demand creating the need for many buses running the same or duplicated routes and larger and larger buses.

My solution to this is to somehow make it very easy to cover the large distances on WDW property very easily and quickly and then move people do specific areas easily and quickly. This is based on the current development of the property where parks have been built and then smaller sub-resort areas around each of them. This is why it makes sense to me to try to move large numbers between the major key areas and then use another method to move smaller numbers to the specific local areas nearby.

Now with all that being said WDW already has a monorail system installed and it does a very good job of moving large numbers of people and already services half of what I am proposing should be serviced by a larger capacity people moving system. So the question at this point is do you A. Expand upon that B. Tear it out to make way for something even better or C. have two separate systems. The easiest choice could be to have two separate systems but that would defeat the purpose as it would just create an additional transfer point. Tearing out the existing system will create additional costs as well as requiring the new system to service all 4 parks itself. So that leaves me with expanding the monorail as the best option. As an added bonus Disney already has some great transportation options for the local resort areas and an abundance of buses that can be used. So this is how I come to the conclusion that the best option is to expand the monorail and continue to use buses to serve the resorts with the option of adding other transportation elements in the future for local areas.

 

[orky8]

You're all right. Let's all just sit here and B$@ch about the current mess and dream of a PRT. And monorails solve 1 problem - park hopping. If nothing else, they make that easier. then use PRTs to hubs. Makes sense to me.

 

[s8film40]

So tell me this: On this 'super-awesome monorail line' that runs to all 4 parks and various hubs, how many trains would you need to guarantee a 5 minute or less wait?

My guess and it's just a guess would be to have at peak times one train in each station for each park loading and at least one, probably two in transit. So that would be 12-18 trains. If they went with the Innovia 200 style they are four car trains that couple to each other during peak times. They could use these and have the same wait times with lower capacity during the non peak daytime hours.

 

[Gregoryp73]

This is the general idea.

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2008/10/personal-pod-1/

THIS!!

This would be perfect for disney! Half the cost to a third of the cost of a Monorail...all the flexibility of buses. It would be a massive cost to connect everything, but I would use it!

 

[s8film40]

THIS!!

This would be perfect for disney! Half the cost to a third of the cost of a Monorail...all the flexibility of buses. It would be a massive cost to connect everything, but I would use it!

I like the look and feel of them and they fit the bill as far as feeling futuristic and even provide better service. The issue I see with those is capacity, at WDW Disney moves people by the tens of thousands I don't think these little cars could keep up. They would also result in wasted transportation space as you would need one car per group regardless of group size. They are having lots of issues with them now but if they get those worked out I could see using these for local areas within the resort, just not major destinations.

 

[Gregoryp73]

I like the look and feel of them and they fit the bill as far as feeling futuristic and even provide better service. The issue I see with those is capacity, at WDW Disney moves people by the tens of thousands I don't think these little cars could keep up. They would also result in wasted transportation space as you would need one car per group regardless of group size. They are having lots of issues with them now but if they get those worked out I could see using these for local areas within the resort, just not major destinations.

I guess it would all depend on how many individual cars they have on the track at a given moment, as well as the capacity of the track itself. The nice thing about this is if they do have a large capacity, they could add subtract cars at will.

I noticed they said on the video that these cars were battery operated, which would in my mind cause some pretty large headaches...it they could somehow run electric from the track to the cars and only use battery power to enter/exit the track, it may be viable.

 

[Goofnut1980]

So why couldn't they expand and charge a usage fee. Charge a family $20 for the week for use of the monorail.. You can take the bus for free, or pay $20 for your whole party to use the monorail. It would be paid for in a few short years. :shrug:

 

[Kamikaze]

So why couldn't they expand and charge a usage fee. Charge a family $20 for the week for use of the monorail.. You can take the bus for free, or pay $20 for your whole party to use the monorail. It would be paid for in a few short years. :shrug:

Worst possible solution. Paying for both systems while making little improvement to the total problem.

Also - at the (very low) $1b number, that $20 fee would only take 50 MILLION purchases to pay off.

 

[invader]

So why couldn't they expand and charge a usage fee. Charge a family $20 for the week for use of the monorail.. You can take the bus for free, or pay $20 for your whole party to use the monorail. It would be paid for in a few short years. :shrug:

Because then everyone would be riding the bus...

~ FD.

 

[wickedfan07]

So why couldn't they expand and charge a usage fee. Charge a family $20 for the week for use of the monorail.. You can take the bus for free, or pay $20 for your whole party to use the monorail. It would be paid for in a few short years. :shrug:

the idea behind a PRT system or monorail expansion would be to decrease the need for buses. So, by keeping buses operating as the "no extra cost" transportation solution does not reduce or eliminate the need for buses. So basicallyyou're paying a lot of money to add an upcharge service that's just going to make the average guest grumpy about how Disney now charges for the monorails.

 

[BalooChicago]

I did not know that drilled piers are also called caisson foundations, but a "caisson" is technically a container and a "caisson foundation" is a foundation built using a caisson.

No. Caisson Foundations (Drilled Piers) are not built using a caisson (such as used to be used in bridge foundations). Holes are drilled, a liner is installed, the bottom is often belled (when not to bedrock) and the hole is filled with reinforced concrete. At the top of caissons are what are called caisson caps which typically transition to grade beams or sometimes a mat foundation system.

I checked today, and our caissons, to a depth of approximately 75' were a little more than $6k each.

 

[s8film40]

This was posted today. With all the monorail activity going on right now and with this new manufacturing facility now built it may help to drive the costs of monorails down even more.

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/-1643640.htm

 

[ChrisFL]

This was posted today. With all the monorail activity going on right now and with this new manufacturing facility now built it may help to drive the costs of monorails down even more.

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/-1643640.htm

New monorail announcer, new advertisements on the monorails, rumors of expansion and news of that.....certainly the most things that have involved the monorail in a LONG time.

Still, while I love the idea of expanding it, I don't think its practical because of the 20+ hotels on property that still might not be close enough for the monorail.