Disney Skyliner (Gondola Transportation System) Read Post 1 Now Open!

[NWOhiogal]

Disney needs to forget its vanity. In case of another emergency having numbers on the bottom of the gondolas is essential. Also, they need to find a way to tamper-proof those kits. The zip ties aren't cutting it.

 

[mom2rtk]

Put your phone down!!

Not gonna happen.

 

[TexasChick123]

Not gonna happen.

I agree.

 

[Donna M]

The numbers seem necessary and very few people if any are going to be overly concerned about seeing them. They're just numbers, no big deal.

 

[Boski]

This picture is in the Orlando Sentinel today. This is one of the problems with people boarding. Put your phone down!!

She probably agrees with you but got hit with some MDE pixie dust and her tickets for the rest of her stay got deleted. Thats why she was on the phone and boarding at the same time.

 

[SgtTibbs]

The slower you make the system the more time people have to board and the less often you will have to bring the entire line to a halt. I wonder where the break even point is in that equation.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

She probably agrees with you but got hit with some MDE pixie dust and her tickets for the rest of her stay got deleted. Thats why she was on the phone and boarding at the same time.

Disney: It's all about the small details and slowing down and taking in those magic moments

Also Disney: Now you have to use the app or internet to make/changing dining reservations, we just pushed 17 alerts to your phone, oh and we have a genie coming so you can use your phone even more!!!!

 

[FinnsMom7]

I did have one thought yesterday in regards to group combining, I saw several people riding solo - if there were another extended downtime, having no other person in the car with you should you end up having a medical emergency would not be good. This is an extreme case obviously but still a consideration.

 

[DGsAtBLT]

Disney probably wants us all on our phones more.

Giving more concrete information about our plans, booking things to keep us in the parks or spending money at their resorts, their constant stream of free advertising by way of the thousands of people posting to social media all the time, etc. The get off your phone ship sailed at least 5 years ago.

 

[seashoreCM]

More experimentation is needed (still in progress?) to find the optimum point for platform speed and boarding time. The cable speed and gondola spacing on the cable might also be modified a tad.

Another useful operation is recording the sequence of gondolas, by car number, on the cable. THen, upon seeing the first car number overhead, the location of the gondola being searched for can be narrowed down. This is not foolproof; a car might be added or removed during the day, but re-recording the sequence each morning may be adequate.

Right now, I think that a limit of eight persons per car if there are strangers is a good starting point.

Having to fold strollers before boarding the gondolas might be false economy, only experience will tell. If a stroller fell open and impeded boarding or alighting, that could force a system stop.

 

[joelkfla]

Back to the main topic (sort of), for anyone interested in Skyliner's sister system in La Paz, Bolivia: a new promotional site by Doppelmayr with nice, professionally produced videos: https://lapaz.doppelmayr.com/en/

 

[SPLzero]

Disney needs to forget its vanity. In case of another emergency having numbers on the bottom of the gondolas is essential. Also, they need to find a way to tamper-proof those kits. The zip ties aren't cutting it.

Disney has now put tamper tape around the handle of the emergency kit and a zip tie. I would assume this would help CM's tell if someone just accidently broke the zip tie or if they opened the kit.

We rode the gondolas when they first opened and also yesterday. It looks like they have fewer gondola's on the lines. They had about 10-15 gondolas parked at CBR. With gondola's paced further out it would give more space for the gondola's coming into the station.

 

[NotUrsula]

I had assumed that the software used RFID to keep track of all cars as they passed through the stations. I would be very surprised if it does not, because WDW is heavily invested in RFID and the use of Big Data for both equipment mgmt AND guest mgmt.

However, systems like that tend to generate large batch reports better than they allow someone to track a single motion in real time, and they also tend to have lots of privilege restrictions on who can access the report generating functions. Perhaps the data was there, but as with other communication issues, accessing it was problematic?

Numbers don't have to be really large and black as on the roofs of city buses. A reflective decal the size of a dinner plate placed near the corner should be plenty large enough to see with an EMS searchlight.

 

[SgtTibbs]

The slower you make the system the more time people have to board and the less often you will have to bring the entire line to a halt. I wonder where the break even point is in that equation.

I found a video posted since the re-opening. Cars are leaving the station about every 11 seconds which I think is a second slower than before. That means 1 less car every two min, or 360 less cabins per 12 hour shift. Hopefully they can make that up in less stoppage time.

 

[firefly_ris]

This may have been addressed and I missed it or don't remember, but someone posted the following photo on a FB group I'm in yesterday, these cars are way further apart in the station now, correct...??

 

[sachilles]

With fewer cars in circulation, you'd end up with greater spacing. Somewhere up thread someone posted that a few were in the station house.

 

[firefly_ris]

With fewer cars in circulation, you'd end up with greater spacing. Somewhere up thread someone posted that a few were in the station house.

Gotchya... not sure why I failed to draw that conclusion on my own.... (and it's almost lunch time on Tuesday so I can't say "I need more coffee" or "Oh Mondays"). Sounds like there are more cars in the station than just the ones involved in the collision. Interested to see how this affects stoppages, and lines.

 

[Mikey15]

This may have been addressed and I missed it or don't remember, but someone posted the following photo on a FB group I'm in yesterday, these cars are way further apart in the station now, correct...??

View attachment 444218

Is that the loading side at Hollywood?

One thing I've seen (before and after Oct 5) is that there's a wider gap between cars as they come around the bends (it looks like the Stitch one is coming around the curve) but they're all next to each other on the unloading and loading sides.

They can't want too big of a gap between cars while loading, or that's asking for an accident of a different (worse) sort.

 

[JoeyEmmaMomma]

We rode these yesterday afternoon, right before we went home from our weekend trip. We were exiting HS and decided to hop on and ride over to Caribbean Beach and back. We are a family of 5, with a stroller, and the man loading us said 5 get their own car.
It was a nice ride, cool on a hot day. It did make both my husband and I a tad nauseous (not enough to keep us from riding again).

 

[joelkfla]

We rode the gondolas when they first opened and also yesterday. It looks like they have fewer gondola's on the lines. They had about 10-15 gondolas parked at CBR. With gondola's paced further out it would give more space for the gondola's coming into the station.

There have always been a few in the storage yard: around 5 in the CBR area, and 2-3 each in the Pop & DHS areas.

I found a video posted since the re-opening. Cars are leaving the station about every 11 seconds which I think is a second slower than before. That means 1 less car every two min, or 360 less cabins per 12 hour shift. Hopefully they can make that up in less stoppage time.

They have been about 11 seconds apart since opening. Reports have varied between 10 & 12; I believe it's just because of timing errors by the posters.

This may have been addressed and I missed it or don't remember, but someone posted the following photo on a FB group I'm in yesterday, these cars are way further apart in the station now, correct...??

View attachment 444218

The cabin in the foreground is still on the turnaround. The red stripe on the ceiling shows that it's just passing the switch where the secondary loop merges. The cabins move apart somewhat as they move thru the turnaround at a higher speed than thru the load and unload areas.