Automating Amusement: The Many Benefits of Amusement Park Turnstiles

Waist High Turnstiles Are a Common Sight at Amusement Parks

Amusement parks all around the country rely on turnstiles to check tickets, direct traffic, and provide an extra layer of security. These parks generally gravitate towards both waist high turnstiles and waist high portable turnstiles because of their inherent durability and low-maintenance characteristics. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find an amusement park or a theme park that does not employ turnstiles at their various facilities. These amusement park turnstiles are often visually modified to fit the theme of their respective amusement parks with custom paint jobs, canopies, and overall design changes.

Top 5 Amusement Park Turnstile Benefits

1. Collects Valuable Data: Most turnstiles can be optioned with digital counters that count every time a person enters or exits a facility. In this case, amusement park managers can use these counting turnstiles to monitor people traffic in and out of their grounds. This information is extremely useful for amusement park managers to derive useful metrics like total attendees per day, peak hours, total people in the park at any given time, and more. In an industry where attendance dictates success, this information is extremely valuable.
2. Automates Ticket Processing: All turnstiles can be integrated with credential checking equipment to process anything from card swipes to key fobs and even bracelets. Basically, anything that can be scanned, swiped, or detected with radio frequencies can be used as a sort of “key” to gain access through a turnstile. When it comes to amusement parks, this “key” usually takes the form of a ticket or a swipe card. With proper access control in place, consumers can swipe their card or insert their ticket directly into a turnstile and the turnstile will either allow or deny them access all without the need for having staff checking tickets manually. With turnstiles taking the place of paid staff, amusement parks can save money and reallocate staff elsewhere.
3. Enhances Security: Turnstiles act as a physical barrier to entry. They protect against unauthorized entrants and possible threats much like a gate or a locked door does in that a person would have to either climb over a turnstile or find a way to pick its (virtually impenetrable) lock to gain entry. Beyond this, people are forced to enter one at a time when passing through a turnstile, giving an amusement park’s security team an opportunity to get a good look at every new entrant and gauge whether they are a threat or not.
4. Protects Against Human Error: When amusement parks employ entrance turnstiles to automatically check tickets, they eliminate the risk for human error. Oftentimes, unauthorized entrants sneak past employees, trick them, or are otherwise mistakenly allowed access into an amusement park when turnstiles are not in place. Further, employees have often allowed friends or family unauthorized access to amusement parks: something turnstiles prevent.
5. Directs Traffic Flows: Oftentimes, turnstiles are simply used to direct traffic when large amounts of people either enter in the morning or exit at closing. These turnstiles only allow one person through at a time, so large mob-like crowds attempting to enter or exit are funneled into a more orderly traffic flow when forced to pass through a series of turnstiles.

Turnstiles at Amusement Parks Benefit Patrons, Too

Though turnstiles are mostly installed at amusement parks for the benefit of management, there are also some interesting benefits that patrons can enjoy. For example, using a series of waist high turnstiles to check for tickets at the entrance of an amusement park increases efficiency by automating the ticket checking process. This then results in shorter lines and more time spent enjoying amenities instead of waiting in line. Further, the inherent security improvements that come with utilizing turnstiles at a theme park mean a safer stay for patrons and less risk of confrontations with pickpockets and other wrongdoers. Finally, attendees can rest assured that they will not get trampled or fall into a random stampede of people because turnstiles break up crowds and control traffic flows into neat, orderly lines. Though these benefits may be subtle, they come together to provide an overall improvement for amusement park goers that cannot be achieved via other means.

The Big Names in the Amusement Industry Choose Hayward Turnstiles

Some of the biggest amusement park brands in the country–and the world–trust Hayward Turnstiles to provide them with the right products to fit each of their specific needs. For example, you can find our waist high portable turnstiles at Six Flags New England among various other Six Flags locations because they required an admission counting solution that could be placed at a certain ride, gather data for a couple of days, and then get simply moved to the next ride to collect data on that one.

Though each different amusement park has their own specific needs, they all have one thing in common; they enjoy the extreme durability and low-maintenance characteristics inherent in our waist high turnstiles. With thousands upon thousands of entrants per day, these amusement parks can rely on Hayward Turnstiles products not to wear or fail. You can proudly find our products used daily at the following locations (among others):