This Ride Ruined Movie World.

[Spotty]

And what does the security line at an airport have to do with theme parks?

[Naazon]

2 hours ago, Spotty said:

And what does the security line at an airport have to do with theme parks?

Seatbelts

[Spotty]

56 minutes ago, Naazon said:

Seatbelts

Oh... my bad  I was thinking it had more to do with turnstiles.

[Themepark Enthusist]

https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/tsa-fails-tests-latest-undercover-operation-us-airports/story?id=51022188
 

not Australia, but our security models are very similar.  
 

this isn’t the only time, a simple google would yield more results. 

[franky]

14 hours ago, Spotty said:

And what does the security line at an airport have to do with theme parks?

I do see his point though. It's possible to be fast and safe, but some of our parks seem to think fast =/= safe.

Read something on Reddit yesterday from the yanks complaining about their parks having slow OPs after implementing, but from the reports of this post Dreamworld seem to be coping well with it.

Edited yesterday at 12:01 AM by franky

[Dean Barnett]

19 hours ago, Themepark Enthusist said:

not Australia, but our security models are very similar.  

You can’t begin to compare the TSA (government agency) with what we roll here with (private contractors)

[Baconjack]

On 12/04/2025 at 7:55 PM, Spotty said:

And what does the security line at an airport have to do with theme parks?

All of our parks should have universal style metal detectors to get shit out of guest pockets and avoid holdups in dispatches

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

On 12/04/2025 at 7:52 AM, Dean Barnett said:

I’m never letting anyone tell me that tracking / gaming efficiency jeopardises safety again.  

The thing is, everyone still goes through the metal detector \ body screening. Everyone still has their baggage put through X-ray. The safety controls are still present. The equipment does most of the work. The workers are there to prevent a person proceeding if the equipment flags an issue, and to investigate further.

The efficiencies you are asking for would remove safeguards. You can't do up your own seatbelt because the ride operator has to push-pull the harness to confirm you are restrained by the primary locking system rather than the secondary. 

We've done this to death, and airport security is not the same thing. I look forward to the next page of this thread being you arguing with everyone who takes the time to thoughtfully explain to you why you are wrong, while you ignore both everything they say to you, and every previous discussion you've had on the same topics all because you saw something you thought tangentially proved your point, when it did nothing of the sort.

But hey - you keep approaching life with a "i'm never letting anyone tell me....again" because that's a great approach to the world.

[Dean Barnett]

12 minutes ago, DaptoFunlandGuy said:

But hey - you keep approaching life with a "i'm never letting anyone tell me....again" because that's a great approach to the world.

The point isn’t that airport security and theme park operations are identical—it’s that they both involve moving large volumes of people safely through bottlenecks, and some do it far more efficiently than others without compromising safety.

Everyone still goes through metal detectors, bags are still X-rayed, and staff still intervene if something flags. The key is smart systems and layouts that maximise throughput while maintaining safeguards.

Now compare that to VRP where processes feel designed for friction. One clear inefficiency? Not allowing re-rides on dead days. If there's no line, no operational constraint, and guests are willing to go again, it’s absurdly inefficient to offload and reload the same train unnecessarily. That doesn’t improve safety—it just wastes time.

Same goes for loading flow. Why wait until the unload platform is totally clear before even starting boarding? In many cases, that’s not a safety issue, it’s a procedural flaw.

9 hours ago, Baconjack said:

All of our parks should have universal style metal detectors to get shit out of guest pockets and avoid holdups in dispatches

I fully agree with you if it’s implemented smartly. For a ride like Superman, universal-style metal detectors after the main queue with free double-sided lockers would be a game-changer. Keeps pockets empty, avoids last-minute dispatch delays, and doesn't punish guests with extra fees just to follow the rules. That’s the kind of ops thinking that actually improves both safety and efficiency.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

4 hours ago, Dean Barnett said:

The point isn’t that airport security and theme park operations are identical—it’s that they both involve moving large volumes of people safely through bottlenecks, and some do it far more efficiently than others without compromising safety.

Everyone still goes through metal detectors, bags are still X-rayed, and staff still intervene if something flags. The key is smart systems and layouts that maximise throughput while maintaining safeguards.

Now compare that to VRP where processes feel designed for friction. One clear inefficiency? Not allowing re-rides on dead days. If there's no line, no operational constraint, and guests are willing to go again, it’s absurdly inefficient to offload and reload the same train unnecessarily. That doesn’t improve safety—it just wastes time.

Same goes for loading flow. Why wait until the unload platform is totally clear before even starting boarding? In many cases, that’s not a safety issue, it’s a procedural flaw.

Some do it without compromising safety because it's possible to do.

Your clear inefficiency? it's not really an efficiency because it isn't improving throughput. You need to identify efficiencies in your busiest days, not your quietest ones. This particular suggestion sounds like you're having a sook about having to re-line up.

The trouble here is that it breaks 'normal'. When you start doing things outside of normal, you can forget things because they aren't in muscle memory. Did I properly check his restraint before his next re-ride? Can't remember. Whoops.

Additionally for your suggestion on loading flow - it also breaks normal. Why? You said yourself "in many cases it's not a safety issue" but in some cases it is. So ops who run different rides have the added complexity of trying to remember which ride they're running to determine when to open the gates?

I think it's a shit system, but because a ride \ some rides require the gates to be held, it is better to hold all the gates because then there is only ONE rule to follow.

One of the biggest criticisms of the TRRR accident was the number of administrative controls put into place by the park to manage risks, as the operators weren't capable of maintaining so much oversight of the ride system and better controls (elimination as one example) weren't considered first. 

Adding complexity to a ride ops job description by giving them different procedures for different rides is a sure-fire way for someone to forget which ride they're on and do the wrong thing.

 

The metal detectors don't change. the x rays don't change. the rides do. and this is why your comparison is shit.