The Monorail Project - Phasing

Recently, there was an article posted at Theme Park University about how the existing Walt Disney World monorail system is overextended. The essay below is a slightly expanded response to that article. 

In the article, Josh Young describes the recent string of well-publicized monorail problems and asks how could Disney World go about getting the monorail system back into good shape? And how could it possibly be expected to handle any of the increase in demand that the new attractions currently under construction and beyond will surely generate?

The most obvious and cheapest solution to fix the reliability issues would be to hire more maintenance workers. Without knowing any specifics, it stands to reason that additional people can do the same work in a shorter time. But it is also possible that some tasks simply take too long to be completed in the short time when the monorail is closed for the night.

If those tasks are train-maintenance related, they could be solved by purchasing an additional train or two. This would increase the amount of time each train could be out-of-service without impacting system capacity. It would be very expensive, and would probably not improve capacity as much as it would improve reliability.

If the tasks are track-maintenance related, I can’t imagine that additional labor would be insufficient for all but the most serious problems. Urban mass transit systems the world over successfully maintain much longer track networks in similar time frames.

To seriously increase the capacity of the monorail would require adding trains and/or allowing for platform-level boarding. Both of these tasks would probably require closing the Resort Line for a few months. So if I was in charge, I would do both.

For the sake of argument, I will describe what I think it might take to upgrade the monorail system to have 8-car trains and platform level boarding. Please note that everything I say here should be suspect. I am not currently employed by Disney, and I have never been involved with anything that would give me any insight to this problem that isn’t publically available. This is just a thought experiment from a person with some theme park operations and design experience who has been researching the Disney monorails in his spare time since 2013.

The first step in converting the system to platform-level boarding would be to order new trains or modify the existing trains so that the doors do not swing out. These pocket doors would probably negatively impact the current sleek Bob Gurr-designed “LearJet” look of the trains. So the trains may need to be entirely redesigned.

A new custom train set would probably take on the order of magnitude of 1 1/2 years to receive from the manufacturer. But the new trains (with 6 cars) would need to replace the old ones before any station work can begin. The new trains might take six months of after-hours testing before they can be in normal operation.

Before any trains could be increased to 8 car lengths, the monorail barn would need to be expanded to accommodate longer trains. This would probably be completed while the trains are being manufactured. This monorail barn expansion might impact the maintenance of existing monorail trains, but it may be possible to phase the work so this is not a problem. I would be curious to know if the monorail barn was expanded when the monorail went from five car train to six car train operations in the 1980s.

Once the fleet has been converted to new six car trains, the Epcot line and the Resort line would close for the stations to be lengthened to accommodate eight car trains. The Epcot station remodel would also impact Epcot parking lot tram operation, because the station is above the tramway.

The new stations would be built to the height of the new monorail train floors, and would have a minimal gap to allow wheelchair access through every door without a ramp.

Work on the Magic Kingdom and TTC stations would need to be done as quickly as possible. But luckily, they are both big enough buildings that construction should be possible 24 hours a day without disrupting the operation of the active monorail line that is adjacent. Unfortunately, the monorail tracks at the Polynesian, Contemporary, and Grand Floridian stations are directly adjacent to one another. So the expansion of these stations would probably only be possible overnight when the Express line is not in service. This phase might take four months?

Once the Resort line stations have been expanded and have platform level boarding, the track of the Resort line could be put back in service as the new temporary Express line. At this point, the Epcot line could reopen and both the temporary Express line and the Epcot line six car trains could be expanded to eight cars.

At this time, work on the Express line platforms at the TTC and Magic Kingdom would be completed, maybe taking another four months. This would mean that for eight months, the Polynesian, Contemporary, and Grand Floridian resorts would be without monorail service. These resorts would also have major construction near their main entrances or (in the case of the Contemporary) in their lobbies for four months.

This would probably cost the same as one or two major E-ticket attractions. And when all the work is done, nobody will notice it. I mean, they currently notice the long lines for the monorail, but when that goes away, they won’t remember that their used to be long lines for it. Like expanding restroom capacity, nobody thinks about transportation capacity until it is inadequate. And like expanding restroom capacity, sometimes it needs to be done.

Like I said above, my numbers are likely to be very inaccurate, because I don’t really know what I am talking about. But this is how I see the Disney World monorail problem today.

In the comments to the original article, one of the most common responses was about how the monorail should be converted to a transit-sized peoplemover system with continuous loading. I think the idea is fairly common among theme park fans. But it is fundamentally flawed.

Believe it or not, a continually moving train actually has a lower maximum theoretical capacity than a train that stops for boarding, assuming the train length can be extended. Think of it this way: a continuously moving train has to have a moving sidewalk entrance and exit width narrow enough that everyone can hold onto a handrail at the transition. Also, such a system has to come to a stop every time a guest arrives who is incapable of stepping onto a moving platform.

Think about how frequently Spaceship Earth has to go to crawl mode or stop while you ride it. I could imagine that Spaceship Earth has probably about half the theoretical maximum capacity for a continuously moving ride system. So that would mean a capacity of maybe 6,000 people per hour? Anything more than that would require such a wide moving sidewalk that I think it would be wider than the current Magic Kingdom monorail station platforms.

The limiting factor to conventional monorail capacity is train length and dispatch interval. The dispatch interval is based on the control system for the train and boarding characteristics such as door width, the presence of a step into the cabin, and the interior layout of the cabin. The door width and cabin interior layout are probably about as efficient as they can be without removing seats in terms of capacity. But the current requirements that wheelchairs need portable ramps to board (a function of door design and the height of the station platform) are what makes the trains take up to twice as long to dispatch as is theoretically possible.

Fixing that, in addition to lengthening the trains could dramatically increase the capacity. I did some back-of-the-envelope calculations and figured that solving the platform level boarding issue by eliminating the step into the cabin would give the monorail a theoretical maximum hourly capacity of 8,640 with a two minute dispatch interval. If the number of trains were increased from the current six to eight, the capacity would be 11,520 people per hour. To go completely crazy and make the trains as long as the Contemporary Resort (13 cars) would give you a capacity of 18,720 people per hour. You can read about my methodology here.