Monorail Operating Costs and Reliability

[lockedoutlogic]

Where's that number come from?

The monorail rounds on good, old fashioned, oil/gas produced electricity...
I would think the daily electric bill is shocking

 

[Andrew015]

Agreed. There's no way that $650/hr is a real number. That might be the electricity bill alone per train. It certainly wouldn't include any overhead or other operational costs. This isn't like maintaining a fleet of Toyota Camry's.

 

[clsteve]

Agreed. There's no way that $650/hr is a real number. That might be the electricity bill alone per train. It certainly wouldn't include any overhead or other operational costs. This isn't like maintaining a fleet of Toyota Camry's.

Have you seen the carpet in those Camry's? Very nice.......

 

[Disney Von Drake]

Where's that number come from?

The monorail rounds on good, old fashioned, oil/gas produced electricity...
I would think the daily electric bill is shocking

Actually the monorail runs on good, old fashioned coal produced electricity. The overwhelming majority of electric power used by the WDW monorail system is produced by the Big Bend power plant in Tampa, FL and the Crystal River power plant in Citrus County, Florida. Both of these coal fired plants are among the most polluting power plants in the nation. Crystal River has the dubious distinction of being the third dirtiest coal fired plant in the entire nation emitting high levels of nitrogen oxides, carbon dioxide and mercury.

 

[lockedoutlogic]

Actually the monorail runs on good, old fashioned coal produced electricity. The overwhelming majority of electric power used by the WDW monorail system is produced by the Big Bend power plant in Tampa, FL and the Crystal River power plant in Citrus County, Florida. Both of these coal fired plants are among the most polluting power plants in the nation. Crystal River has the dubious distinction of being the third dirtiest coal fired plant in the entire nation emitting high levels of nitrogen oxides, carbon dioxide and mercury.

Lol...I'm always accused of being "overly" negative...so I gave the power a bit of a the benefit of the doubt...

And I get burned.

I would like to congratulate central florida on a true distinction though...it's hard to beat Appalachia in this category...

Like beating the Russians in hockey during the Cold War.

 

[OldsDr]

The person said $650 per train per station. With no timeframe as in per hour, per day, per week. I would figure there to be six stations, so that would ge you to $3900 per train per unit of time. Now if we only knew the unit of time and where the $650 came from I would sleep much better.

On to the Electricity. WDW would be the perfect place for Fuel Cells. To run rides, run the busses, run the hotels, it would probably get them a huge tax discount and Great PR. I have been wondering for a while why they never went the fuel cell route, at least for the busses and monorail.

 

[lockedoutlogic]

Agree about the fuel cells...

I know everyone think animal kingdom is "so far out"...

But the reality is that the farthest distance - point to point - on the property from guest area to guest area is about 5 miles...

It's a rather tight area...which means there is little variation to short distances.

A mag lev from OIA to a central point station somewhere off I-4 that allows central distribution to wdw and the OTHER tourist areas - to their mutual advantage...and an efficient power source is the way to go...

But that doesn't lead to dividends

 

[Andrew015]

The person said $650 per train per station. With no timeframe as in per hour, per day, per week.

Actually, they did specify a timeframe of hours...

Sorry I didn't have enough caffeine when I posted. No its what the resorts at the time were paying per hour per train. I forget where the number came from but it was when I was in Transportation from management, since we were sharing management at the time.

However, I wouldn't put much stock in either the figure or the timeframe being accurate...

 

[OldsDr]

Okay, I missed the clarification. But I was kind of correct because the original post did not contain a time frame.

 

[I M Fearless]

All just my opinion but:

Personally I can't see the monorail being replaced by buses at Magic Kingdom any time soon.

Despite the huge cost of the monorail, and people's general dislike of buses, I think the true difficulty would come in the slow loading capacity of the buses.

Buses simply take too long to load and unload, particularly when you consider multiple scooters and ECV's needing to be secured.

If you consider an average attendance at MK to be 40,000 - 50,000 guests you would be hard pushed to move that many people to and from the TTC with buses and ferries alone. Particularly when so many people leave at key times. I believe maximum capacity of MK is around 80,000 thereabouts.

Even with the monorail's fairly fast loading time, there are still massive queues of people trying to leave the park en mass much of the time. However many buses you have in the fleet, there comes a point at which they cannot be loaded quick enough to move the crowds needed.

We already have three bus loops at MK just for the hotels. To build more bus stops would become impractical in my opinion. It's already a fair walk to the furthest loop as it is.

I think there is always going to be some level of need for a mass transit system to move lots of guests to and from the TTC and MK, particularly with the speedway closing and the reclaiming of more parking space. With 10,000 cars in the lot even with say 3 people per vehicle that's 30,000 people to move.

I think rather than extending platforms, we would likely see trains which have connected carriages which allow people to stand all the way through. Similar to some subway trains where there is no wasted space between cars. Also, with level doors (think elevator doors) loading and unloading of scooters would be far faster and less labour intensive than the current system with ramps etc.

I can't say I believe the Epcot loop is as essential as the Express loop to the TTC however. It's a nice thing to have, but there are options that could replace it. I think they are stuck with the Express monorail at MK whether they like it or not.

Short of filling in seven seas lagoon I can't see how they can get rid of the express monorail or something very similar to move the vast number of people quickly enough to clear or fill the park.

 

[manning]

Using the Pod concept (know it won't be built) every ride would be non-stop. The stations are on spurs. This takes the stop out of the traffic flow.

 

[I M Fearless]

I can't see a pod system being efficient enough to load the numbers involved in or out of MK at peak times.

With a monorail taking 3 minutes per train to load and dispatch, it would give a theoretical capacity of 6000 riders per hour. This would require 100 buses per hour to replace assuming an average load of 60 guests per bus.

I agree that a pod system would be great elsewhere if it could be financed. I just can't see it being financed at this point in the game.

Sadly I think we will see an increase in buses across property, albeit with more efficient technology as it becomes cost effective to introduce.

However, I also fail to see the monorail being removed any time soon as things stand, I just can't see how they would move the volume of guests without it or something very similar to take its place. I think we will no doubt see a decline in reliability as the monorail ages further, but eventually new trains will surely be the only viable option?

 

[JimB.]

Actually, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in the day, trams WERE used for transport from the TTC to the MK. My 1st visit in May '72 (ugh. I. Am. Old.) I rode one. Under the water, past the CR and was kicked off where the buses stop now.

 

[I M Fearless]

Trams would be much more efficient than buses in terms of their loading capacity..

However, as the trams are not ADA compliment, I can't see how they could reintroduce them at this point to service the TTC to MK route without having difficulties transporting guests with mobility issues.

I think they are passed the point of no return in terms of removing the monorail without putting in something very similar. With the number of guests present in 2015 they would struggle even with trams to move enough guests quickly enough. They would certainly be a big help when the monorail is being serviced as a supplement to the replacement buses, not sure where they could offload at MK now though?

It will be interesting to see what happens as the years pass as I think doing nothing is no longer an option either.

 

[Tonka's Skipper]

Still the light rail and Pods would be a excellent blend into the overall system and permit the reduction in buses!

 

[George4]

Tonka, you keep advocating for your pods system. The challenge with that is still the volume of devices needed and the cost to develop and implement. If the monorails service approximately 12-15,000 people per hour (probably high, but that would at least be max capacity) and your pods held even 10 people, you would still need close to 500 of them just to make people wait less than 15 minutes. Would they all have separate tracks? Presumably they would all run on a few circuitous tracks, and then you are back to the problems the monorail faces - what if they break down? What happens to the pods behind them? If they are at ground level, what happens when one hits an animal, or a car or bus (this is why monorails are elevated)? What would the cost be up front? If the system in Vegas (more like a monorail I know) cost over a billion, the level of complexity of the pods would have to be higher.

I still think the monorail is the best approach, but I wonder if something more like the tomorrowland trasnsit authority would be a better solution. Rapid deployment and constant flow would be advantages, but you still face the problems of them crossing traffic or what if one breaks down, and then we are back to - Why replace the monorail at all?

 

[I M Fearless]

I think a Pod system could add huge appeal (and room rate value) if it was deployed between or within resorts.

For example. Going between HS and Epcot IG via the Epcot resorts. It would no doubt add value to the room rates.

Similarly to connect all areas of CBR/POP/AoA to one central transport hub in that area (maybe opposite Trinidad South) where you could transfer to a bus. It would no doubt drive up room sales but at the same time significantly reduce bus costs as you could run buses more frequently and less empty, with fewer stops, this would reduce labour costs. I certainly see the appeal and benefit of bringing this into the mix, just not as an alternative to the buses, and least of all the monorail.

They ultimately need to increase capacity on the TTC to MK route, as opposed to reduce it.

 

[I M Fearless]

I calculate that the TTA has a typical operational capacity of approx 2500 - 3200 riders per hour, the monorail would be around 10,000 per hour as things stand.

Obviously this throughput could be increased with improvements to the boarding efficiency but the obvious way to add capacity would be to change the train layouts to increase the load, as well as reduce the time taken to board/disembark.

While the TTA has a high throughput for a ride, it is not great at shifting high volumes of people who all arrive en mass as often happens at peak times.

 

[gsimpson]

It is wildly amusing watching people wax on about the cost of operating and maintaining a monorail vs. buses. While I completely agree with all who have said we on the outside can't know the exact numbers it isn't really hard to come up with comparable systems in most large cities. I work for a transit agency that has busses, fixed guideway vehicles (light rail), and paratransit (dial-a-ride). When looking at the cost of course you look at cost per passenger mile, since any other measure would be completely meaningless to the finance people. Without exception the light rail is orders of magnitude cheaper both to operate and maintain than the buses. Similarly, the buses are massively cheaper to operate and maintain than dial-a-ride (small buses and vans). Do we spend more operating a light rail vehicle than a bus, absolutely. Does it cost more per passenger mile to operate the light rail vehicle than a bus, heavens no the bus is several times the expense. We can pack 300+ folks on an LRV, it would take 8-10 busses to handle the same number of people. We can load an LRV in under 90 seconds, we can't load 8-10 buses that fast. It only takes one operator to operate the LRV, it takes 8-10 operators to operate the buses. The LRVs are not impacted by traffic delays (sadly we are at grade so we do sometimes get caught when an accident crosses our alignment, a problem monorail doesn't have). Now of course this is not to say the answer is to put LRV everywhere, that would be stupid, you have to put it between points that have high traffic. Similarly, if Disney put Monorail to every resort, waterpark, etc would be stupid, it only works when you can pack in a lot of people. I also get to see the maintenance records for our buses and our LRVs, and the LRVs are out of service for maintenance much less time, of course they are not subjected to all the road hazards that the buses and their electric traction system is less complicated and less prone to failure than the buses. There are other tangible benefits to the riders, I've yet to see someone choking on diesel or CNG fumes while an LRV is dwelling at a station, not so much that way with buses. Don't believe a word I say, look to any major city and see what their real world experience is. Most major cities are expanding their fixed guideway systems because they are much cheaper per passenger mile than any bus. Keep in mind that Disney has to build and maintain the roads around Disney World, do you really think that the roads that have been torn up and repaved dozens of times and have constant pot hole fixing going on is cheaper to maintain than the beamway that has been there since teh '70s? If you know how to maintain a road for 20 years for less money than a guideway you need to start putting bids in because every city in the country will take you up on it. Will Disney expand the Monorail - who knows, but it isn't because the cost is higher than buses.

 

[Tonka's Skipper]

Tonka, you keep advocating for your pods system. The challenge with that is still the volume of devices needed and the cost to develop and implement. If the monorails service approximately 12-15,000 people per hour (probably high, but that would at least be max capacity) and your pods held even 10 people, you would still need close to 500 of them just to make people wait less than 15 minutes. Would they all have separate tracks? Presumably they would all run on a few circuitous tracks, and then you are back to the problems the monorail faces - what if they break down? What happens to the pods behind them? If they are at ground level, what happens when one hits an animal, or a car or bus (this is why monorails are elevated)? What would the cost be up front? If the system in Vegas (more like a monorail I know) cost over a billion, the level of complexity of the pods would have to be higher.

I still think the monorail is the best approach, but I wonder if something more like the tomorrowland trasnsit authority would be a better solution. Rapid deployment and constant flow would be advantages, but you still face the problems of them crossing traffic or what if one breaks down, and then we are back to - Why replace the monorail at all?