Disney Bus wrecks at downtown disney loading area

Tardisblue · Mar 19, 2015

LeeAndRobin said:
I'd love to see an answer to this question myself. Any time the subject of the monorail comes up, people always say 1) It's very expensive to operate and 2) it is very unreliable. However, no one ever gives any details or examples of specific breakdowns, breakdown rates, or costs of operation.

Unless there is an insider who is willing to share, any numbers around this would be purely speculative. I would imagine the ongoing operating costs are minimal compared to the upfront costs. However, to expand the monorail system would be a huge cap ex and they would not be able or willing to go to every resort - there's not enough density traveling to and from, say, Port Orleans, to justify it.

George4 said:
Again, these things can be solved. Buses are quicker and easier in the short term, but they add to traffic, require a lot of personnel (something Disney is against right now), and are susceptible to accidents at any time. One minor bus accident wreaked havoc at DD for hours because no one else could get around it. With switches, the monorails would slow down, but still be perfectly functional around the disabled vehicle.

No personnel needed for a driverless system other than the maintenance department, which already exists.

George4 · Mar 20, 2015

Tardisblue said:
No personnel needed for a driverless system other than the maintenance department, which already exists.

My comment was in reference to buses. The buses have extensive personnel costs. I realize the monorail can be run without a driver, although I don't think that is feasible or wise for such a long journey from the airport to the parks.

truck1 · Mar 26, 2015

George4 said:
The bus overrode a curb stop. It didn't "wreck". It did wreak havoc though. From another thread, I don't think Disney is really ready to abandon all transportation in favor of buses only. To me, this right here is the argument for expanding the monorail to at least include the 4 parks and DD in a loop. It would be a backup system to the buses with still high enough capacity to move people around efficiently when something like this happens. I know, tens-hundreds of millions to build (maybe more, don't really know), but that would have given you a backup system to keep all of these people from waiting and just being annoyed with your bus system. I know, its a lofty dream

Its not a curb stop. The big bollards in front of the busses are designed to stop a bus by lifting the front end off the ground. Basically the bollards are set on a heavy duty pivot.

Castle2Castle · Mar 26, 2015

George4 said:
My comment was in reference to buses. The buses have extensive personnel costs. I realize the monorail can be run without a driver, although I don't think that is feasible or wise for such a long journey from the airport to the parks.

The driverless system comment by @Tardisblue was also about buses, as driverless technology is advancing rather quickly right now for ground transportation vehicles. Driverless technology applied to buses, or possibly some other mass transit system, could utilize some portion of the existing infrastructure or require modifications to it which would be less than the cap ex of new monorail lines.

seashoreCM · Mar 26, 2015

George4 said:
... My only curiosity with this pipe dream is what does fail on the monorail? Is it in the cars, or something else? ...

Alas, there are all kinds of things that can go wrong. One small example, one door does not close completely. The operator sees an indicator that the door is open. He then has to open the doors and get out and go over to the defective door to take temporary corrective action. Operating track switches so a bad monorail train can go back to the shops and a replacement train brought out takes a lot of time.

George4 · Mar 26, 2015

seashoreCM said:
Alas, there are all kinds of things that can go wrong. One small example, one door does not close completely. The operator sees an indicator that the door is open. He then has to open the doors and get out and go over to the defective door to take temporary corrective action. Operating track switches so a bad monorail train can go back to the shops and a replacement train brought out takes a lot of time.

I get that, but that doesn't take the system down for a few seconds to a few minutes (track switching aside). I am wondering more about the times it goes down for 30-180 minutes or more. In all my years of going to WDW, I have only seen it close like that once, and I was told that it was a power supply problem that took a long time to fix. None of the trains got stuck on the loop, they all stopped in stations, so no people were stuck, but I was just wondering what else causes long "failures" of the system beyond a momentary lapse like the door alarms.

truck1 · Mar 28, 2015

George4 said:
I get that, but that doesn't take the system down for a few seconds to a few minutes (track switching aside). I am wondering more about the times it goes down for 30-180 minutes or more. In all my years of going to WDW, I have only seen it close like that once, and I was told that it was a power supply problem that took a long time to fix. None of the trains got stuck on the loop, they all stopped in stations, so no people were stuck, but I was just wondering what else causes long "failures" of the system beyond a momentary lapse like the door alarms.

Hardware issues, like the hard drives that run the various safety systems. The trouble shooting of that could take time. The physical parts of the safety systems that are attached to the beams, that track where a monorail is at any given time. For example, if a sensor goes out on a certain part of the track, it might take them while to find the cause, then go replace the part. Especially if they have to take the work tractor out and move trains for the tractor to get to the effected area. The safety cutouts that are in the system to shut down the system, like when a guests are on the wrong side of a gate. Signal repeaters for the entire system. Power connections and rectifiers for the entire system.

Disney Bus wrecks at downtown disney loading area

Tardisblue

Don't Blink

George4

Mouseketeer

truck1

Growing older but not up.

Castle2Castle

Disney Runner

seashoreCM

All around nice guy.

George4

Mouseketeer

truck1

Growing older but not up.

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