IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/oropre/v45y1997i1p1-13.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Managing Capacity and Flow at Theme Parks

Author

Listed:
  • Reza H. Ahmadi

    (University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California)

Abstract

The growth of service industries and their impact on the U.S. economy have attracted considerable attention in recent years. While some service sectors, most notably airline and telecommunication industries, have been in the forefront of model development, the industry is rather fragmented, and similar rigor is lacking in most other sectors.This paper describes an application of a model-based approach to some of the short-term ride capacity and visitor flow issues faced by the Six Flags Magic Mountain (SFMM), a major national theme park. Specifically, we consider daily operations at the theme park and focus on the generation and evaluation of alternative strategies for managing ride capacities and visitor flow. Management of demand involves two aspects: (a) understanding customer preferences as revealed by routing behavior, and (b) using the model to evaluate the implications of changes in transition-behavior.A crucial component of the study relates to the empirical data collected. Besides verifying the validity of the models, these data provide several insights for developing schemes to manage the day-to-day operations of the park. The SFMM management was actively involved in various phases of this study and as a result has been introducing the proposed models in a phased manner.

Suggested Citation

  • Reza H. Ahmadi, 1997. "Managing Capacity and Flow at Theme Parks," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 45(1), pages 1-13, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:oropre:v:45:y:1997:i:1:p:1-13
    DOI: 10.1287/opre.45.1.1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/opre.45.1.1
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/opre.45.1.1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Vasiliki Kostami & Amy R. Ward, 2009. "Managing Service Systems with an Offline Waiting Option and Customer Abandonment," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 11(4), pages 644-656, November.
    2. Zhang, Yingsha & Li, Xiang (Robert) & Su, Qin & Hu, Xingbao, 2017. "Exploring a theme park's tourism carrying capacity: A demand-side analysis," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 564-578.
    3. Rutger D. van Oest & Harald J. van Heerde & Marnik G. Dekimpe, 2010. "Return on Roller Coasters: A Model to Guide Investments in Theme Park Attractions," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(4), pages 721-737, 07-08.
    4. Alexander, Matthew & MacLaren, Andrew & O’Gorman, Kevin & White, Christopher, 2012. "Priority queues: Where social justice and equity collide," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 875-884.
    5. Ryan, Gerard & Hernández-Maskivker, Gilda-María & Valverde, Mireia & Pàmies-Pallisé, Maria-del-Mar, 2018. "Challenging conventional wisdom: Positive waiting," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 64-72.
    6. Refael Hassin & Yair Y. Shaki & Uri Yovel, 2015. "Optimal service‐capacity allocation in a loss system," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 62(2), pages 81-97, March.
    7. Zhang, Yingsha & Li, Xiang (Robert) & Su, Qin, 2017. "Does spatial layout matter to theme park tourism carrying capacity?," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 82-95.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    service; design; capacity;
    All these keywords.

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:oropre:v:45:y:1997:i:1:p:1-13. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.