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.