title: Is Disney's FastPass Valid and/or Useful Queue Theory
body: <p>At Disney World, they use a system called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FASTPASS" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Fastpass</a> to create a second, shorter line for popular rides.  The idea is that you can wait in the standard line, often with a wait longer than an hour, or you can get a FastPass which allows you to come back during a specified time block (usually a couple hours later) and only wait for 10 minutes or less.  You can only be &quot;waiting&quot; for one ride at a time with a FastPass.</p>
  <p>I have been trying to figure out the queue theory behind this concept, but the only explanation I have found is that it is designed to get people out of the lines and doing things that will bring in additional revenue (shopping, eating, etc).</p>
  <p>Is this why FastPass was implemented, or is there a real visitor efficiency problem that it solving?  Are there software applications that have applied similar logic?  Are there software applications that <em>should</em> apply similar logic?</p>
  <p>Part of the problem I see with implementing something similar in software is that it is based on users choosing their queue.  Do to the faster wait cycles in software, I think a good application of this theory would require the application to be smart enough to know what queues to place people in based on their needs without requiring end-user choice.</p>
  <p><strong>UPDATE</strong></p>
  <p>12 years (and two major updates to FastPass later), <a href="https://youtu.be/9yjZpBq1XBE" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Disney's FastPass: A Complicated History</a> gives the in-depth, definitive answer of &quot;it's complicated&quot;</p>