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Fun With Roller Coaster Statistics 2011

roomraider

Best Topic Starter
Hey guys
Some of you may remember I did this last year (or was it the year before? I forget) but I found some spare time and decided to have a mess around with the RCDB's extensive database again.

All graphs and tables contained within this post are created by myself and any errors are entirely my fault.

First Up lets take an updated look at the state of the worlds coaster industry over the last 15 years
rcdbstat4.jpg

This graph is slightly misleading as all 2011 coasters won't have been announced yet

However if we break this down a bit more we get this result.
rcdbstat7.jpg

I shall let you guys draw your own conclusions from this. but there has been a dramatic drop in the USA over the last few years. However as above 2011 may still rise. I would have added China here but information on Chinese rides is understandably vague across the DB and many rides only have ranges as to when the ride may have opened

Ok so everyone knows that America leads the way in shear numbers of coasters already but let's take a look at an updated list of the worlds top 20 coaster owning countries.
rcdbstat11.jpg

This takes into account operating coasters only but it shows just how many coasters there are in China now. They may all be tiny children's rides and spinning coasters but there's a fair few.

However there is no point in living in the country with the most coasters if it takes days to get to the nearest one. So the next chart shows how many coasters each country has per kilometre squared.
rcdbstat3-1.jpg

Here the USA does much much worse and northern europe has a really strong showing. who ever said Belgium was boring? The caveat here is that this doesn't take into account the vast areas where people don't live. This is why Australia had such a poor showing in this chart last year.

So like last year here I produced a chart of the number of people per ride. This was done with the latest census or estimated population available for each country so there is some margin for error here.
rcdbstat1.jpg

Here we see the USA do much better and the UK come storming into 2nd. Denmark still leads the way though.
Now this next graph is completely pointless but it gave me a chuckle.
The previous chart got me thinking. What if EVERYONE in a country decided to have a day trip to a theme park one day. And somehow evenly spread themselves between every coaster in that country... If you were waiting at the back of a queue for a B&M coaster how long would you wait....

Yes I know just Humour me.... :p this chart was done on the theoretical capacity of Riddlers Revenge at SFMM.
rcdbstat2.jpg

Pointless... But if everyone goes to a theme park... don't be in India.

Right back on track. The next table shows which continents have the highest percentage of steel or wooden rides.
rcdbstat10.jpg

The columns show what percentage of a continents coaster collection is either steal or wood. Australia does well on the Woodie front but it's a little misleading since Australia has so few rides. but it does have 3 woodies.

Moving on I will focus mostly on B&M's for now. But the following graph shows where the worlds B&M's are
rcdbstat5.jpg


But what ride does B&M make the most of? well when you think about it, It's pretty obvious
rcdbstat8.jpg

Inverts account for a massive proportion of B&M's output. Although this has slowed in recent years it is still doing well. (Note: this includes all under construction rides too)

So If B&M pretty much invented the inverts and it's their most popular product, what market share do they have?
rcdbstat6.jpg

Turns out they don't do badly but Vekoma dominates the market here with several more models (Shuttles, Junior and SLC's), to put this in perspective, there are currently only 111 operating inverted rides out there.

Now to finish of today's post I shall have a bit more fun. TPR have a reoccuring joke about rides on the moon and last year we crowned a new speed record holder. So if we took each of the worlds fastest 10 coasters. How long would it take to get to the moon at top speed? This is based on the average distance of the moon so it changes a lot. but the ratio's would be the same
rcdbstat9.jpg


Hopefully you enjoyed this pointless trip through my mind.

Its getting late here so I better dash
I hope to do more soon though.

Cheers
Dave
 

Inverse

Hyper Poster
Great! I love this stuff!

Well done, great work. Please feel free to post up more I'd love to see some other manufacturers analysed in detail too.

No really surprising results for me however.
 

Ian

From CoasterForce
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Social Media Team
I loved the one you did last year, Dave, and love this one even more!

A "global recession" really does impact on the amount of coaster being built, it's amazing looking at the first graph.

Glad to see that the UK appears to be the most balanced in the by-county graphs.

I hope you post some more.
 

CMonster

Giga Poster
Ha! I love this, it's a really interesting read-through and does, as Ian said, show what was happening in the world (especially the first couple).

Thanks! :--D
 

ECG

East Coast(er) General
Staff member
Administrator
Great stuff Dave. Can you do me a flavor & add Japan to the second chart? I know there's been a huge drop off there, but would like to see the comparison.
 

roomraider

Best Topic Starter
Well i decided to play with Mitches Coaster Poll and join it up with RCDB stats to see if there are any interesting correlations.

Turns out not much :(

Heres the length of the top 50 coasters on the last poll
mitch1.jpg


Not much of a trend there really (the ones with 0 were because there was no length on the RCDB)

However when we look at manufacturer dominance check this out

mitch2.jpg


Yikes... B&M and Intamin are crushing the field here. Not that surprising really but i didn't expect it to be that high.

When we look at the types we get a pretty good spread
mitch3.jpg


It was really hard to make categories here but i split them down to what i thought worked. Launched loopers were split from normal loopers but really rides like Blue Fire and Storm Runner could have gone in either Launched or Loopers or their own catagory. :s

I shall try add some of the lowest ranked rides soon

East Coast(er) General: I shall get on it when I get time :)
 

Coasterfiend

Roller Poster
Go statistics! It just goes to show if one thing dominates one graph, it can still lack in the next, like USA for example with their amount of rides but not a lot in some spaces. I am lucky to live in a coaster dominate area of the United States. Also, impressive pie charts. Very interesting :)
 

T0M

Hyper Poster
Good post, I'd be interested to know what the number of coasters is per national wealth of each country as well.

I've always said the UK does better than most IN PROPROTION.
 

walker1104

Mega Poster
Thanks for this! Its really interesting stuff. But, like Ian said, it really does show the impact of the recession with the amount of coasters that are being built.
 

Lofty

CF Legend
This topic is actually amazing. Thanks a lot for taking the time out to actually do this. It does form quite a read and explains quite a lot about the industry and how the recession has hit..
 

s15c

Mega Poster
Wow. I think that this is so interesting. Maybe you could rearrange you bar graph of the top fifty coasters for inversions instead? I'll bet there would be something there.
 

Artichoke

Mega Poster
Now that, was absolutely amazing! I'm shocked at just how many Coasters there are in the world. Thank you so much for sharing this.
 
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