New Disney Monorail Design

WDW needs to bring back the monorail. Every guest at a Disney World hotel wants to feel the exhilaration of riding the monorail to the parks, rather than the mundane bus system.

The goal is to make the commute from hotels to parks:

          1. more enjoyable than the bus system

          2. more efficient and faster than the bus system

My design:

Quick Facts:

• This design has 4 monorail lines that connect almost every hotel to the parks in one transfer or less.
• One monorail line travels along the existing loop around the Seven Seas Lagoon.
• Unfortunately, the Epcot loop around Future World was taken out in order to provide efficient connections to other parks and hotels.
• The goal is to connect the major hotels to the parks in a 20 minute commute or less.
• The colors are not ideal, but are red, orange, green, and blue in order to differentiate the routes.

Overview:

• Each monorail line runs on a closed circuit (For example: monorails on red monorail line do not run on blue monorail line). This is to prevent the potential danger and inefficiency of switching beams.

• Each monorail line has its own maintenance facility/train yard at the end of the lines.

• Each monorail line would have its own method of turning around, either on a loop behind the station after the last stop, or switching tracks and going back into service in opposite direction, similar to how some NYC subways turn around at the end of lines.

• Monorail lines would use advanced technology to be able to run safely at at least 60 mph between stops, especially on the long stretch between Epcot and the TTS. 

• The loading and unloading process would be revised in order to maximize efficiency and safety. For example, today on the WDW monorail the resort monorail takes 18 minutes to ride around, while spending 60-90 seconds at each station. That is inefficient for this model, since the goal is to be more efficient than the bus system. This is a difficult problem to solve, since families with small children take their time when loading and unloading with strollers.

1. Red

          Connects Magic Kingdom and the Transportation and Ticket Center to Magic Kingdom Resorts.

2. Orange

          Connects All-Star Resorts, Caribbean Beach Resort, Pop Century, and Art of Animation Resort              to Boardwalk/Epcot Resorts, Boardwalk, Hollywood Studios, and Epcot.

3. Green

          Connects Magic Kingdom and TTS to Epcot, Port Orleans Resorts, Saratoga Springs Resort, and           Downtown Disney, also allowing option for extension of route towards Orlando for easier                     access.

4. Blue

          Connects Magic Kingdom and TTS to Boardwalk/Epcot Resorts, Hollywood Studios, Blizzard             Beach, Animal Kingdom, and Animal Kingdom Lodge.

Analysis of Monorail stops:

There are 20 Resorts at WDW resort (not including villas, and including Swan and Dolphin)

• There are 6 Parks at WDW (4 theme parks and 2 water parks)
• Also a connection is necessary to Downtown Disney and Transportation and Ticket Center
• This would call for 28 stops.
• Instead of trying to connect every single hotel, I organized the hotels into groups that would be served by only one monorail stop.

Also, not every hotel was chosen to have a monorail connection.

List of Hotel Groups

from most rooms to least rooms:

M = would have monorail connection in my design

• All-Star Resorts (6,000 rooms) M
• All-Star Movies 1,920 rooms
• All-Star Music 1,604 rooms
• All-Star Sports 1,920 rooms

• Epcot Resorts (5,000 rooms) M
• Boardwalk Inn 378 rooms
• Boardwalk Villas 583 rooms
• Yacht Club 621 rooms
• Beach Club 576 rooms
• Beach Club Villas 282 rooms
• Swan 756  rooms
• Dolphin 1,509 rooms

• Art of Animation and Pop Century Resorts (5,000 rooms) M
• Art of Animation 1,984 rooms
• Pop Century 2,880 rooms

• Magic Kingdom Resorts (4,000 rooms) M
• Contemporary 655 rooms
• Bay Lake Tower 428 rooms
• Polynesian 847 rooms
• Grand Floridian 867 rooms
• Grand Floridian Villas 147 rooms
• Wilderness Lodge 729 rooms
• Wilderness Lodge Villas 136 rooms

• Port Orleans Resorts (3,000 rooms) M
• Port Orleans Riverside 2,048
• Port Orleans French Quarter 1,008

• Caribbean Beach (2,000 rooms) M
• Caribbean Beach Resort 2,112 rooms

• Coronado Springs (2,000 rooms)
• Coronado Springs 1,915 rooms

• Animal Kingdom Lodge Resort (2,000 rooms) M
• Animal Kingdom Lodge 1,307
• Animal Kingdom Lodge Villas 458

• Fort Wilderness Resort (1,200 rooms)
• Fort Wilderness Campground 1,197 rooms

• Old Key West (1,000 rooms)
• Old Key West Villas 761 rooms

There is no connection to Old Key West, Fort Wilderness Resort, Coronado Springs, or Typhoon Lagoon, since connecting the monorail to these hotels would be too far out of the monorail routes.

This is a track map that shows the separation between each of the monorail tracks.


Route Times:

Red Line from Magic Kingdom:
1. Magic Kingdom               0 min
2. Contemporary Resort       2 min
3. TTS                                  4 min
4. Polynesian Resort             6 min
5. Grand Floridian Resort     8 min
6. Magic Kingdom              10 min

This red line route today takes about 18 min around the loop. This time could be shortened to 10 min if each train only spent 60 seconds at each station and the monorails traveled faster in between stations.

Blue Line from Magic Kingdom:

1. Magic Kingdom                    0 min
2. TTS                                       2 min
3. Epcot Resorts / Boardwalk    7 min
4. Hollywood Studios                9 min
5. Blizzard Beach                    12 min
6. Animal Kingdom                 15 min
7. Animal Kingdom Lodge      18 min

Green Line from Magic Kingdom:

1. Magic Kingdom                    0 min
2. TTS                                       2 min
3. Epcot                                     8 min
4. Port Orleans Resorts             11 min
5. Saratoga Springs Resort       13 min
6. Downtown Disney               15 min
7. 1-4 or Orlando connection   20 min


Orange Line from All-Star Resorts:

1. All-Star Movies                            0 min
2. All-Star Music                              2 min
3. All-Star Sports                              6 min
4. Hollywood Studios                     10 min
5. Epcot Resorts/ Boardwalk          12 min
6. Epcot                                          14 min
7. Caribbean Beach                        17 min
8. Art of Animation/Pop Century   20 min
9. Parking Lot                                22 min


Monorails during the morning rush hour would run every 4-5 minutes, and every 2 minutes near the closing of the parks. At Epcot, the monorail only runs every 10 minutes around 9:30pm when the World Showcase Fireworks Show is finished. As a result of this there are long lines at the Epcot station since trains arrive so rarely. With a new monorail train schedule, the system could accommodate the excess guests traveling to the parks in the morning and excess guests traveling to the hotels after park closings.

Conclusion

This would no doubt be an expensive project for Disney World to undertake, however it would be worth the cost. This project goes along with the ideas of Walt Disney himself. A new monorail system like this would be an attraction in itself, and would keep guests wanting to come back year after year. The man Walt Disney had dreams of a comprehensive transportation system like this one, he would be disappointed with the current bus system that is inefficient and slow. Please Walt Disney World, expand the monorail. Everyone loves it.