Recently, a viral video shocked the world when it showed robot stunt performers pulling off death-defying feats of acrobatic amazement. Perhaps even more shocking to some was the fact that the Walt Disney Company was the technological brainpower behind those stunning innovations.
But if you’ve been paying close attention, that revelation likely didn’t shock you at all.
Disney has long been an innovator in the technological space. The Matterhorn Bobsled at Disneyland was the first tubular-steel roller coaster ever built — paving the way for rides like Millennium Force in Cedar Point and Fury 325 at Carowinds. Even beyond attraction design, Disney has had a hand in developing everything from civic planning best practices to safety measures used by TSA and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Many of Disney’s receent innovations, however, haven’t yet made their way beyond the theme parks. Why? Who knows — but here are a few technologies popularized by Disney that we hope to see take off sometime soon.
Disney’s public transit
Image: chad_sparkes, Flickr (license)
The single most important and most ambitious technology Disney has implemented is its massive public transit infrastructure in Walt Disney World. It has managed to create a system that not only works efficiently, but also has broad approval among its passengers. It is perhaps the only place in America where even kids would rather take public transportation than drive.
Compare this to most public transit systems in the United States, and it’s hard not to be completely floored by how far ahead Walt Disney World is.
Everything from the steady backbone of the bus system, to the glamor of the monorail, to the adventure of the ferries, works together to create a seamless point-to-point multi-modal system that is as fun to ride as it is convenient.
But even more than its efficiency, the greatest innovation of Disney’s public transit is its never ending desire to improve. Even now, Disney is adding a new method of transit to Walt Disney World in the form of the Skyliner gondola ride — carrying passengers from their nearby resorts to Epcot and Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Plus, Disney is currently in the process of developing autonomous vehicles that can shepherd guests from point-to-point in a similar fashion to the Minnie Vans.
And most of all, it’s fun! Cities could use a bit of whimsy in their public transit.
The PeopleMover
Image: aloha75, Flickr (license)
But Disney’s greatest gift to public transit technology isn’t even one that it has implemented at scale on its own property. That is, of course, the Tomorrowland Transit Authority aka the WEDway PeopleMover.
When Walt Disney first developed his plan for the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, one of its key features was the PeopleMover. His famous monorail would be used to transport guests between the far-flung reaches of the property, but in order to move between parts of the main city, guests would need to board a PeopleMover, which would whisk them away to each neighborhood.
That underlying technology — embedded electromagnets in the track which, depending on the distance between them, accelerate or decelerate a vehicle — remains a brilliant and elegant solution to transit signal frustration. It’s fun, calming, and efficient — all feelings that would make a commute much better.
Imagine if, instead of boarding a subway train in New York City, you could instead conjure a continuously boarding on-demand PeopleMover train that runs to the next station smoothly and without incident? That’s the dream.
Wait-time tracking
Image: harshlight, Flickr (license)
One of the key experiences of a Disney trip is seeing the posted wait time for an attraction you want to expereience and using that information to decide whether or not to ride. That information is vital, even if it isn’t always accurate.
As data tracking has become more efficient and more wide-spread, it’s crazy that this concept hasn’t been mainstreamed beyond the parks.
Some non-Disney locations, like hospital emergency rooms, do provide estimated wait times, but it’s not nearly ubiquitous. Imagine if, when you go out to eat, you could pop open the Yelp app and see not only what the best restaurants in your area are, but also what their estimated wait time is? What if you could see, in real-time, just how slow the check-out line is at your local grocery store or drugstore?
Information helps you feel in control of your decision-making process, and more control reduces stress. Hopefully we see this technology come to the real world sooner rather than later.
Online Check-In and luggage transfer
Image: aloha75, Flickr (license)
One of the great conveniences of a Walt Disney World vacation is online check-in and Disney’s Magical Express. Guests can opt to have their luggage transferred directly from their flight to their room, and they can choose to skip the front desk and have their room number texted to them during the day.
Because your MagicBand and luggage tags are shipped to you in advance, you’re able to have more time on your vacation to yourself.
Why is this only a Disney thing? Many people book their hotels months in advance for travel beyond the World, and there’s no reason why the major hotel brands couldn’t do the same thing.
Imagine landing in Los Angeles in the morning, having your hotel pick up your bags at the airport, while you go out and enjoy the city during your day. Maybe you visit a museum or see a baseball game, then head straight to your hotel room only to find your bags waiting for you.
MyDisneyExperience
But Disney’s most consumer-ready tech solution is clearly MyDisneyExperience. The app/data revolution that took over Walt Disney World has such wide-reaching implications on the operation of the resort, that it’s surprising to see other entities not try the same thing. It’s great innovation isn’t just in its data-gathering, but in what data it collects.
MyDisneyExperience gives management a greater sense of how many guests intend to be in each park on a given day, and where — because of their FastPass+ reservations — they intend to be at key moments. That allows Disney to make more informed decisions on staffing and change those decisions on a minute-to-minute basis to react to guests.
This would be a game-changing technology in many other fields. Public transit systems could better predict surges and proactively attempt to mitigate them rather than reactively try to manage them. Airports could more accurately predict which security gates will be the busiest at any given time of day and staff them accordingly.
But that is just the tip of the iceberg. We have actually seen some businesses try to take some aspects from MyDisneyExperience and apply them to our businesses. AMC recently launched A-List, a movie subscription service — but it’s key feature is that you can make three movie reservations at a time, not unlike FastPass+. Those reservations give you better access to hit movies, while also giving AMC advance notice of which times to staff up.
That is just the beginning though, and this only scratches the surface of Disney’s technological advancements. Hopefully they filter down to the real world sometime soon, and make our daily lives a bit more magical in the process.
