WDW testing larger busses.

[Dznefreek]

The four primary WDW parks host 150,000 - 250,000 guests per day. Factor in round-trip transportation and they need to move 300K - 500K bodies daily. And that's just assuming one destination per person, per day. .

not everyone takes the bus . . . .

 

[tjkraz]

not everyone takes the bus . . . .

And some people take 4-6 trips per day if they go to one park in the morning, another park in the afternoon and DTD after dark.

It's tens-of-thousands of bodies to be moved around property daily and I can't see Disney making the sort of infrastructure investments which would be necessary to convert that traffic to another system.

 

[rodkenrich]

.

 

[arthuruscg]

The will most likely be CNG. The price for CNG has decreased lately and should stay low since it is limited to small area fleet use. (no interstate CNG pump infrastructure)

Hybrids as in the way cars are, doesn't scale up vary well.
They might go for Diesel(CNG)-electric style, which is scaled down from trains. Basically the IC runs to generate electricity and never directly powers the wheels.

 

[WizardLarz]

I was in WDW 3-1 thru 3-1 and saw these new busses being run around through the MK bus load zone. The next day when I was riding a bus by myself I asked the Driver about them. He told me they were just being tested but would most likely not be bought because they are to long to fit any of the spaces with the current set-up at the bus stops.

 

[Dznefreek]

What about those that take the monorail or boat. . . .maybe 10's of thousands not 1/2 million

 

[lobmcf]

The Artics actually handle pretty well - they can make it around Boston, which can't be easier than WDW

I was just going to say, we have these in Philadelphia, and the drivers aren't always very experienced and the roads aren't necessarily compatible, and they do just fine.

 

[manning]

CNG makes sense. Read an article that cost could be equal to $2.00 + per gal range. With Disney able to buy in bulk even lower.

 

[zulemara]

They are supposed to be building a third bus loop at MK to accommodate the animation resort and it will also have transportation to/from the other parks rather than sending those buses to TTC. If they do this, perhaps they will design the 3rd loop to work with the new buses. It goes without saying that MK handles more transportation than any other park so just modifying MK would help things quite a bit. Right now they are only being run on the POP and All Star routes from MK I believe.

From an insiders point of view, I think this is fantastic. The bus system is over worked right now, especially when rails/boats are down for one reason or another. They are the workhorse of the WDW transportation system. I don't think a large addition of smaller buses would solve anything because at peak times as it is right now, buses are backed up coming into MK all the way out to CR and down the hill. Each one pulling in has to wait for an assignment, which is dependent on how quickly a bus can load, which is dependent on how quickly ppl get on the bus! The same argument has been made for ferryboats, that we need a 4th one. It wouldn't solve anything because the load/unload process makes it so one FB is already waiting anyway when 3 are running. Adding a 4th would just be pointless, it will not create a larger guest flow/hour without a significant redesign of the queue area and modification of the ferry routes(both of which I would be in favor of!) But nonetheless, the point remains.

 

[doconeill]

They are supposed to be building a third bus loop at MK to accommodate the animation resort and it will also have transportation to/from the other parks rather than sending those buses to TTC. If they do this, perhaps they will design the 3rd loop to work with the new buses. It goes without saying that MK handles more transportation than any other park so just modifying MK would help things quite a bit. Right now they are only being run on the POP and All Star routes from MK I believe.

Have they started this yet? I haven't seen/heard anything yet...they certainly have the room for it though. Doesn't AoA open in May?

I agree that the artics would be a big boost on certain runs...I've waited for several buses to get through the POP line at MK before, and have always seen that that line is at least twice what others are.

 

[zulemara]

Have they started this yet? I haven't seen/heard anything yet...they certainly have the room for it though. Doesn't AoA open in May?

I agree that the artics would be a big boost on certain runs...I've waited for several buses to get through the POP line at MK before, and have always seen that that line is at least twice what others are.

not yet, it's more or less rumored, but they are going to have to do something otherwise they won't have any spots available for the gold and blue routes when rails or boats are down.

 

[robertdangelo]

They have used those tandem buses AKA "Accordian Buses" for far suburbs in our area for years.

Remember when the All Star resorts 1st opened and they had the "cattle Carrier" transportation for those resorts?

 

[PACVII]

Have they started this yet? I haven't seen/heard anything yet...they certainly have the room for it though. Doesn't AoA open in May?

I agree that the artics would be a big boost on certain runs...I've waited for several buses to get through the POP line at MK before, and have always seen that that line is at least twice what others are.

Ironically, I have found over the year that regardless the resort I am staying in the lines at the bus stop are always longer than any other resorts.

 

[tjkraz]

The next day when I was riding a bus by myself I asked the Driver about them. He told me they were just being tested but would most likely not be bought because they are to long to fit any of the spaces with the current set-up at the bus stops.

Disney wouldn't be testing the busses if that was an insurmountable hurdle.

From what I'm reading, it sounds like they would be primarily used for park closings when there are thousand of guests exiting at one time. I think they could afford to have the busses spilling over into a neighboring bus lane for a few minutes if it means transporting twice as many guests in a single run.