There ARE queues like that – eg at railway stations, where simultaneous queues of empty taxis and taxi-seeking passengers are a symptom of bad organisation, and there is win-win potential if you can change that.

But surely, in a theme park, the operators NEED the queues. If you only have a fixed number of high-demand-ride-places per day, then you need to keep down the number of places consumed by each visitor to allow you to take admission money off as many visitors as you can get away with – and you limit consumption by keeping people penned up in queues. While people are in a queue for one high-demand ride, they can’t consume another high-demand ride. 

If you let visitors spend less time queuing then they are going to consume more of these constrained-capacity rides and you have two unattractive options:

Option A is to set a lower limit on visitor numbers, which cuts both gate revenue and retail/catering income. 

Option B is to stick with the same number of visitors, and accept that the increase in the consumption of high-demand rides by the savvy and well-planned will be matched by a poorer experience for other visitors who might not get on more than one or two popular rides in their whole visit – and are less likely to come back.

Premium-price priority passes may be economically viable (bringing in enough extra to compensate for reductions you need to make in non-premium admissions). But reduced queuing for popular rides at standard admission prices? Doesn’t look like a winner to me.

So use it to enhance, not replace the current system.

Next, your idea wouldn’t work for most Disney rides. First, because they don’t use a ticket system any more, and second, because for many attractions the load area isn’t the same as the unload, and the vehicles have to go through an area that is not meant for guests to see. The Haunted Mansion, for instance. Third, they already have ride systems in which the ride never stops: the Omnimover, for one, which again the Mansion uses.

In addition to getting the normal verbal congratulations from various staff through the day, we got a few extra perks, such as free dessert from the manager of one of the restaurants we stepped  into for lunch, as well as a few passes to butt ahead in line on a few of the rides.   Given that (a) it was late May, so tourist season hadn’t fully hit its stride, and (b) it was well into the afternoon hours when we got these passes, the advantage wasn’t biblically ridiculous, but the courtesy was quite welcome. 

And no, there was no invitation for further action afterwards… though the one nubile young lovely at the Norwegian pavillion….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lXv7-906ow

BTW – not to toot my own horn – but I had the highest score rank you can get in the Buzz Lightyear ride.

I believe they can do this by applying the principles of “Personal Rapid Transit” to roller coasters. That way the ride *never* stops — only individual cars do. Plus, you could do great stuff like swipe your card to get on the ride, and choose how many laps you’d like to do. More laps cost more ride credits. As far as I know, I came up with this idea. I did email some people at Disney to try to talk to them about it, but never received a reply. I really think it could revolutionize theme parks. Bonus: it doesn’t require all-new rides — just new cars for the rides, and the addition of an onramp/offramp.

Good idea.  That way, locals will be there early when the park opens the next day, and presumably, open up more spots in the parking lot.  But how would locals get back home?  Why not allow locals to get a digital fast pass for a ride back home as well?