On February 8, 2022, the long-anticipated (and heavily storied) Genting SkyWorlds theme park opened its doors to the public as part of a soft launch, with the full feature set of the park still to be made available in due course. But one of the big obstacles the SkyWorlds team decided to tackle right away was the issue of long queues at the rides and various attractions around the park – a real pain point for both visitors and operators at every park with heavy and regular foot traffic. The solution to the problem was made clear from the outset: To leverage cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) to help smooth out crowding and waiting times all throughout the park.
To this end, the SkyWorlds crew sought to partner up with Alibaba Cloud to implement a system that they like to call “Virtual Queue” (VQ), which works by using smart algorithms in the background to distribute foot traffic as evenly as possible across the various rides and attractions in the theme park. The VQ system works through the SkyWorlds mobile app as an optional paid feature that visitors can get before entering the park, with the number of pre-loaded VQ reservations set to six for now. We assume that more reservations can be purchased later on, while extras can also be obtained in the form of rewards (which we’ll get to in a bit).
Once inside the park, the VQ feature acts as a reservation system for visitors by letting them reserve spaces on different rides at specific time slots (some rides are even labelled as exclusively VQ-only), and then creating an itinerary that they can follow and earn rewards should they stick to the suggestions provided by the app. For example, visitors who want to experience the “Independence Day: Defiance” 4D ride can open up the SkyWorlds app and search for the ride on a map in the park, then pick a slot for when they want to get on board the ride. On the app, they’ll see how long they’ll have to wait for that particular time slot, and then choose whether or not they want to reserve a slot anyway.
Once a reservation is made, visitors can then go about seeing other parts of the park or experiencing other attractions suggested to them by the app, before being alerted that their time slot on the “Independence Day: Defiance” ride is nearing. Once they get the alert, they can head over to the attraction and join the special line reserved only for those who have made reservations through the VQ system. Then there’s the itinerary system that will act as a sort of guided tour for visitors by telling them which rides they can go to next that have the shortest queue times, with the waiting times derived from an array of data points throughout the park, such as the number of VQ reservations on the app and cameras/sensors that monitor the number of people in queues.
If visitors follow the suggestions given to them by the system, they’ll eventually be rewarded with points that can ultimately be exchanged for more VQ reservations as well as other goodies like discount vouchers and themed gifts. The team estimates that waiting times for those using the VQ system can be reduced to as little as 10 minutes when they arrive at their chosen rides, while they also maintained that the split between those in the VQ lines and non-VQ lines will be distributed fairly when admitting guests into rides and attractions – a win-win situation for all visitors to the park. In a nutshell, think of the VQ system as a special priority pass for visitors who want quicker access to their desired attractions at the park, while also acting as a way to get crowds spread more evenly around the park and checking out as many attractions as possible.
And for those that don’t want to use the VQ system, there’s still the benefit of waiting times around the entire SkyWorlds vicinity being reduced thanks to the system working constantly behind the scenes. Currently, the VQ system has been touted by Genting and Alibaba Cloud as the very first of its kind in any theme park in the Southeast Asia region, and will also possibly be incorporated into future attractions opened by the Genting group. While the pricing tiers for the VQ system at Genting SkyWorlds are yet to be determined, visitors planning a trip to the hottest new entertainment destination in Genting Highlands can prepare for much swifter ride entries once the system becomes fully implemented in time for the park’s full launch sometime in the coming months.
The VQ system can now be accessed via the Genting SkyWorlds mobile app available on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store , while those without a smartphone or access to these stores can also access the system through various VQ terminals located throughout the park itself. FBI: Scammers are interviewing for remote jobs using deepfake tech The TikTok beauty filters that will teach you how to apply makeup Nothing Phone 1 will have a mid-range Snapdragon chip, but there’s a catch Apple’s fitness app now lets you work out to hits by Katy Perry and Daft Punk Cover image sourced from Mashable Southeast Asia. .
From: mashable
URL: https://sea.mashable.com/tech/20737/heres-the-clever-reason-why-queues-at-genting-skyworlds-are-much-shorter-than-usual