WDW Crowd Movement

[Raineman]

I've always wondered if anyone has ever done a crowd movement study at the parks. I think it would be very interesting to see how the crowds move around each park and how crowd movement is affected by the time of day, the weather, parades/shows/fireworks, busy/closed attractions, etc. Most regular WDW visitors are aware of the pinch-points at each park that slow larger crowds down by reducing the amount of space for the crowd to fill-but how do guests handle these? When guests are walking from one side of MK to the other, do they cut through the hub or walk around? Which direction do people walk when they do the full tour of World Showcase? How many people use the shortcuts from Adventureland to Frontierland/Liberty Square?

 

[eliza61nyc]

I've always wondered if anyone has ever done a crowd movement study at the parks. I think it would be very interesting to see how the crowds move around each park and how crowd movement is affected by the time of day, the weather, parades/shows/fireworks, busy/closed attractions, etc. Most regular WDW visitors are aware of the pinch-points at each park that slow larger crowds down by reducing the amount of space for the crowd to fill-but how do guests handle these? When guests are walking from one side of MK to the other, do they cut through the hub or walk around? Which direction do people walk when they do the full tour of World Showcase? How many people use the shortcuts from Adventureland to Frontierland/Liberty Square?

lol, I sure some one has done a study.

You ever watch the news and they talk about a "study done by______" shows that ants walk in a counter clockwise direction or some other nutty topic and think? "who does these studies"??

Some one has done their thesis on guest behavior at Magic kingdom.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

@lentesta

 

[Minnie Mum]

@lentesta

^^^^^ this.

Have you heard of TouringPlans? How did you think they came up with their recommendations? Their Unofficial guides have a brief review of how they go about collection get data, although that's just the tip of the iceberg.

 

[DisneyJoe]

Disney has been collecting data forever - even before Magic Bands - even with paper Fastpasses, credit card payments put you at a location at a time/date, Key to the World cards that were your theme park ticket, enabled you to charge to your room - so made store purchases, food purchases - so if they wanted, they could get a rough idea of where you were throughout the day. Now with MagicBands they may possibly be able to see more info then that, especially with RFID and scanners in stores and attractions.

Even if Disney only used their in park closed circuit cameras to observe movement at a high level, they could get enough info.

 

[Scrooged]

I’m almost certain that the in house data that Disney does is used most effectively to monitor guests movement throughout the park. I can’t recall the name of the company off hand, but I do know that some of their analytics have been contracted out, especially ones regarding vehicle traffic in the WDW resorts. Big Data is what is driving Disney and it’s development and, and it has been for several years. Since the inception of MagicBands and Fastpass tech, the use of data is important for development for the park. Obviously everyone knows these things who are huge park fans, but Disney has cornered the market on Big Data re: their own parks and guest movement. That is what makes them super competitive compared to other companies and parks around the country. This is an interesting blurb about it from Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernar...ng-to-boost-customer-experience/#598594453387

 

[Trackmaster]

I've always wondered if anyone has ever done a crowd movement study at the parks. I think it would be very interesting to see how the crowds move around each park and how crowd movement is affected by the time of day, the weather, parades/shows/fireworks, busy/closed attractions, etc. Most regular WDW visitors are aware of the pinch-points at each park that slow larger crowds down by reducing the amount of space for the crowd to fill-but how do guests handle these? When guests are walking from one side of MK to the other, do they cut through the hub or walk around? Which direction do people walk when they do the full tour of World Showcase? How many people use the shortcuts from Adventureland to Frontierland/Liberty Square?

There are some unofficial study, but obviously Disney does a lot of data mining. Some posters have talked about how they do this. There's a reason that they love the FP+ system. They want to know how to plan for the day. One thing that Disney hasn't picked up on that I have: people generally walk on the right side of the midways, like they're driving, but there are some mavericks -- usually people who don't drive (ie kids). I think that most parks would be wise to have dividers and tell people to stick to the right side of the midways when they walk. It would help with the flow of traffic immensely, and would help with safety a lot (safety might be the best selling point to Disney, because I know that they would hate how it makes the parks look).

 

[MisterPenguin]

It's hard to believe Disney does crowd movement studies and still keeps and actually creates new chokepoints (looking at you Epcot festival booths).

That being said, they just went out of their way to clear up a chokepoint in front of Sci-Fi Drive In and moved the DVC kiosk. But that's only because they're panicking over SWL crowds. The same reason and efforts they're making over in DL with Project Stardust.

 

[Scrooged]

True about the obliviousness to their own data- but that movement of a wallet to a POS machine is really the one thing they want to study the most...

 

[Trackmaster]

It's hard to believe Disney does crowd movement studies and still keeps and actually creates new chokepoints (looking at you Epcot festival booths).

That being said, they just went out of their way to clear up a chokepoint in front of Sci-Fi Drive In and moved the DVC kiosk. But that's only because they're panicking over SWL crowds. The same reason and efforts they're making over in DL with Project Stardust.

Exactly. And that's why all these Libertarians and Survivalists out there should ease up. Yeah, the government/NSA/Big Brother/and every Fortune 500 corporation has all this data on us... but they're never going to actually have enough organization and discipline to ever use it against us. Nobody really cares about what the average middle class person does.

 

[Goofyernmost]

The Magic Bands give Disney a real time knowledge of the direction that the crowds are heading.

 

[Corgi]

Have you ever considered becoming an industrial engineer?

 

[lentesta]

I've always wondered if anyone has ever done a crowd movement study at the parks. I think it would be very interesting to see how the crowds move around each park and how crowd movement is affected by the time of day, the weather, parades/shows/fireworks, busy/closed attractions, etc. Most regular WDW visitors are aware of the pinch-points at each park that slow larger crowds down by reducing the amount of space for the crowd to fill-but how do guests handle these? When guests are walking from one side of MK to the other, do they cut through the hub or walk around? Which direction do people walk when they do the full tour of World Showcase? How many people use the shortcuts from Adventureland to Frontierland/Liberty Square?

We know how guests move from ride to ride and land to land. And we know the shortest routes between any two points in any park. We've not looked at how many people take shortcuts, however.