One of the biggest factors that can make or break a theme park visit is the length of the queues. Nobody likes queues, not even the theme park operators. But how can a theme park reduce queue times without breaking the bank? In his new book, Absolute Efficiency, author Neil Wilson takes a detailed look at how to improve operational efficiency, including several meticulously researched case studies.
We recently caught up with Neil to learn more about why he wrote this book, why he’s so passionate about operation efficiency, and more. At the end of this post, we’ll let you know how you can enter a contest to win a copy of Neil’s book yourself!
C101: Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions! So, why did you decide to write Absolute Efficiency?
Neil: I noticed there was a gap in the market for it. There are quite a lot of books now about customer service and leadership in theme parks. Most of them focus on Disney, although there are a few books looking at non-Disney parks by people such as Joel Manby and Matt Heller. There weren’t any books about queuing in theme parks. In fact, whilst there is a lot of information scattered around, there wasn’t any easily accessible information about the best practices for managing queues.
I also realized that both the staff and customers hate queues. It’s pretty obvious why the customers don’t like them, but there can be a perception that the staff don’t care. I don’t think that’s the case, though. Most staff find long queues more stressful. When there are long queues, guests are more likely to queue jump. Guests are more likely to get angry if the ride breaks down, or if they get to the front and their child’s too short. A lot of the problems staff have to deal with are exacerbated when there are long queues.
It’s one of those subjects that probably sounds quite tedious to a lot of people. But it does cover a lot of disciplines. There’s an engineering side to it, for example in terms of how rides are designed. Do the cars have sides? What kind of restraints do they have? Do cars load individually, in batches or continuously? There’s an architectural side in terms of the design of the stations. For example, is the exit in the middle of the offload platform or at one end? Do people exit down stairs or a ramp? There’s a leadership side. Are people encouraged to work together or pass blame. And how do you encourage people to work more efficiently? Is it about training? About lowering turnover? About pressuring people to work faster? About motivating and engaging staff? There’s a statistical side, not just in terms of ride availability and throughputs, but also in terms of things like guest flow and attendance patterns. There’s also a psychological element. To have efficient operations you need to understand numbers and people. How do customers decide which rides they’re going to head for? How can you discourage queue jumping? How can you encourage guests to share vehicles?
In some parks it can feel like customer service and efficiency are in opposition to each other, with staff being given contradictory messages about how important it is to be quick, and how much they should interact with the guests. I’ve tried to show that customer service and operational efficiency don’t have to be the enemies of each other, and that parks can have efficient operations and friendly staff. I’ve also tried to show that fast moving queues isn’t about cutting corners. There are ways to make things more efficient without compromising on safety, for example by removing bottlenecks from pathways, or having hidden redundant safety systems in restraints. These allow you to get rid of the seatbelts that slow things down.
C101: When it comes to theme parks, who is ultimately responsible for ensuring operational efficiency?
Neil: Efficiency seems to span every department. The engineers are responsible for keeping rides reliable, with all the seats available. The operations department are responsible for loading the rides as quickly as possible. The marketing team are responsible for nudging guests towards the quieter days, for example some parks have crowd calendars on their websites, or advisories about avoiding certain public holidays. The events/entertainments team can also give people additional reasons to visit at quiet times of year. October used to be a quiet month, before Halloween became such a big deal. The finance department might help to set the pricing strategy. Do they charge less on a quiet day, or give a freebie like Disney’s free dining plans? You also get queues for food, or even to get into the park. Efficiency isn’t just about the rides.
One of the things I realized is that efficiency often sounds unpleasant. We’ve all heard about ‘efficiency drives’ which involve making people redundant and lowering standards. I expect most of us have come across managers who walk around shouting at everyone to work faster, or people who squabble about who’s the fastest, often with backbiting and putting each other down. What’s efficient for the company can be a nightmare for the staff, with things like zero hour contracts and split shifts, etc..
But I realized that efficiency doesn’t have to be a negative thing. Working constructively to make the queues shorter is really rewarding. Efficiency doesn’t have to be a euphemism for ruthless cost cutting. Queuing is one of the biggest sources of complaints, and having short queues is a big competitive advantage.
C101: What’s the best way to approach improving efficiency?
Neil: There are good and bad approaches to efficiency. When staff are put under too much pressure to work faster, it can lead to more accidents. After The Smiler accident, Alton Towers were criticized for putting the engineers under pressure to re-open rides more quickly. They have since changed their working practices. Constantly putting staff under pressure to work quicker can lead to breakdowns in customer service and it creates a constant level of background stress, which is really bad for the employee’s health. Stress is an evolutionary feature that activates the ‘fight or flight’ response to help us respond to threats. When we’re stressed for a short time we can work quicker, because the body puts all of our energy into dealing with the stressor. The immune system starts to shut down. We stop digesting food. These things are good if we’re being chased by a lion in the jungle. They’re not so good if our managers are putting us under long term stress to try and make us work faster.
I also realized that you can learn quite a bit about a culture from studying operational efficiency. For example, quite a few of the American parks have outdoor water parks that are only open for a few months. That works, partly because the US has a long summer vacation. In the UK, the school summer holiday (vacation) is about 6.5 weeks, so that kind of business model doesn’t work so well. Because the UK has a shorter summer school vacation, parks are under pressure to spread visitors out over a bigger chunk of the year. I’ve heard people say that Disneyland Paris failed partly because the Americans didn’t realize that Paris was wet and cold in the winter, but my research doesn’t support that. It looks like they did realize that France has a colder climate, but they based their projections more on Tokyo Disneyland. In Japan people were more willing to visit parks in the winter, despite the colder weather. Different countries have different safety rules and legislation which can affect things like whether or not people are allowed to take loose articles on a ride. In most countries parks set their own capacities, but in Hong Kong a government department does (the Food and Environmental Hygiene department).
I’m from the UK, where queues tend to be particularly bad. If you look up places like Legoland Windsor, Thorpe Park and Chessington World of Adventures on Trip Advisor, there are lots of one star reviews complaining about the waiting times. We have a short school summer holiday. We have inconsistent weather and most people try to plan their visits around good forecasts. We have a national shortage of engineers, which can lead to unreliable attractions. We now have quite strict laws about taking kids off school to go for holidays and days out. Some other European parks are near borders where they can benefit from different school holiday patterns. In the UK theme parks are often seen as a children’s thing, limiting the demographics who will come during the school term time. Most parks have a disabled policy where disabled guests can skip the queues (which is a good thing), but these are used very heavily, and often abused. The British public are becoming more protective of their personal space and less willing to share vehicles. A lot of British parks have older ‘legacy’ rides with less efficient designs. The UK parks also tend to have fairly stringent rules around things like loose articles and whether guests can be on platforms when trains are moving etc. All of these things mean that the UK parks have some of the worst queues in the world.
Because the UK parks are often known for their queues, the public often assume they’re making lots of money. Since I became an enthusiast in the 90s about half the UK parks have closed down: Camelot, American Adventure, Loudon Castle, Pleasure Island, Spanish City, Frontierland, Grove Land, Marvels, The Rotunda, Pleasurama, Crinkley Bottom, Ocean Beach, Metroland… It seemed strange that people would often complain about how long the queues are at theme parks, but the parks would keep on closing. Clearly there are lots of factors here, but I became intrigued with why a lot of these parks had such a reputation for long queues.
C101: Fascinating stuff! As an efficiency driven engineer, it drives me crazy whenever I visit a park and see inefficient operations. Hopefully Neil’s book will help some in theme park management improve their efficiency. Thanks again Neil for taking the time to answer our questions and for providing a copy of your book for us to giveaway (keep reading)!
Our Favorite Quotes from Absolute Efficiency
Listed below are some of our favorite quotes from the book that I think every theme park operator would benefit from taking into consideration:
“You can influence how your guests think, but in the end it’s their perception that matters, not yours.”
“The best form of publicity is positive word of mouth, and your happy guests talking about the good times they had. Not an incredulous news presenter showing miserable guests who’ve been waiting three hours for a 30 second ride.”
“People might be more willing to accept pricing to control demand, if people believe the demand has increased because the park has improved its quality (something they worked for), rather than due to something outside their control (luck).”
“When we encourage a really long queue to give our marketing team a photo opportunity, we’re arguably treating our paying guests like extras in an advert.”
“Ultimately, the goal of efficiency and spreading guests more evenly through the season is to improve guest satisfaction. Using advanced booking discounts to guarantee visits on a day when they’re going to have a miserable time isn’t helpful.”
“Using discount or other incentive to drive guests towards days with wet weather, without making efforts to weather proof the park and ensure they still have a good time, will lead to unhappy guests, poor reviews, and low satisfaction ratings.”
“It’s astonishing that Epcot can have a 90,000 capacity, and become the 7th most visited park in the world with just 8 actual rides and 15 attractions…the combined capacity of Epcot’s (53) shops (most in any theme park) is similar to the entire capacity of a medium sized theme park.”
“Communicating the waiting times to guests is important in busier parks, but it’s only helpful if these estimates are accurate.”
“Finding the sweet spot between customer service and efficiency is critical, as queues tend to be the biggest source of complaints, while outstanding customer service tends to be the biggest source of positive guest feedback.”
Absolute Efficiency Giveaway
We’re giving away a copy of Neil’s book! For a chance to win your own paperback copy, leave a comment below with an example you’ve seen of efficient operations within the amusement industry. We will randomly select one winner to receive a copy of the book.
Enter by Tuesday, March 22, 2022, at 11:59 p.m. ET.
Rules:
- One entry per person.
- You must include a valid email address so that we can contact you if your name is drawn.
- The winner must respond within 24 hours to remain eligible.
- We are only able to ship prizes within the United States.
Thanks again to Neil for sharing his book with us. Can’t wait to read your future books! Absolute Efficiency can be found on Amazon.com.
dual loading stations
The Excalibur ride crew at Valleyfair were the fastest ride crew I have ever seen. It was an empty day, and they told us they were trying to break the most cycles in one hour in Valleyfair history. So every dispatch was organized chaos, as all the guests including myself were ”in on it,” going as fast as possible in order to get the train out and beat the record. I think they got around 23 trains in the hour, with only one train operations, which is insane. I kid you not, it was sub 20 second dispatches. This was ERT on steroids because of how fast we were dispatching. It was the most fun I’ve ever had with any ride crew.
The Excalibur ride crew at Valleyfair was the fastest ride crew I have ever seen. They were trying to break a record for most cycles run in one hour. We were in on it, and me and the 7 other people sat in our seats as quickly as possible. We then proceeded to stay on the ride for 30+ minutes as the crew made sub 20 second dispatches. This was ERT on steroids on a empty day. This was the most fun I’ve had with any ride crew. They ended up with around 23 cycles, and with one train operations, is pretty insane.
Sorry I posted twice, the first one didn’t load so I accidentally double posted.
Any operational procedure that requires work on behalf of the guest that can be pushed to online and completed prior to arrival. Obviously buying tickets is the biggest one that minimizes queues at the entrance, but other purchases such as express access, meal deals, reservations (for dining, shows, or attractions) will cut down on the annoyance of waiting in line while onsite.
I like the efficiency of Railblazer at California’s Great America that stems from the design and ride operators. The entire queue is the same width as the loading area to avoid bottle necks. Being a single rail coaster, the design is new to most riders so there are plenty of signs on your way to the loading station explaining how to load to avoid confusion at the station. Finally there is a “shot clock” that is visible to all guest and the operations team displaying the dispatch time, color coded green for less than one minute, yellow for 1-1.5 minutes and red for anything after 1:30. This also encourages guest engagement by showing which seats are locked properly and which ones have not engaged the restraints properly, taking some work off of the operations team for more efficient dispatches.
Thank you so much to everyone who’s already entered. We’ve still got another week and a bit to go, but already there are some really good responses. So far every idea has been completely different to all the others.
Thanks everyone for entering. Congratulations to Zack, you’ve been randomly selected as the winner of this giveaway!
Well done Zack! Thanks for entering. When coasters have smaller trains there’s always a challenge around getting a decent throughput, although it can be done. Rip Ride Rockit’s a good example of that, although that did cost a lot more to build than similar sized coaster with bigger trains and less ‘technology’. It sounds like California’s Great America are also doing a good job with optimising the throughput from RailBlazer.
I agree that signage is particularly important where there’s an unusual loading system. We see this around things like standup coasters, flying coasters and motorbike coasters. Hopefully one day I’ll visit California’s Great America and see it for myself.
Enjoy reading the book.
Thank you! I can’t wait to read it!
Interesting