It’s peak summer and the sun is out for most of us (unless you live in Scotland, like me…). The warm, sunny weather is ideal for open-air activities such as a visit to a theme park.
Even though we’re all about health and safety at Pro-Sapien, we’re most likely not the only ones who have looked at a roller coaster before and wondered – how do they keep them safe?!
Roller coasters are the ultimate safety management juxtaposition – a coaster’s purpose is to look and feel dangerous, but absolutely requires a meticulously engineered system that prioritizes passenger safety.
From designing the ride and rigorous testing to regular maintenance checks, theme parks must create an adrenaline rush for millions of visitors without compromising their well-being.
How do they do that? And what can you learn from their safety management for your company? Let’s have a look.
Under The Close Eye of The Public
In contrast to other high-risk industries such as manufacturing, theme parks operate in close contact with the public. While incidents in a large factory might not always garner public attention, the direct interaction of theme parks with customers means that every aspect of their safety management is under a magnifying glass. In the event of an accident, it’s almost certain to make headlines.
For example, the Alton Towers Smiler crash that happened in the UK in 2015 left five teenagers with life-changing injuries and sparked huge coverage on the overall safety of roller coasters, as well as the the company had to pay after admitting to wrongdoing.
Health and safety failings like these along with media coverage put pressure on theme parks to uphold safety standards and promptly address issues. Like the aviation industry, which has some of the strictest safety measures, theme parks developed new safety mechanisms over time that eventually made roller coasters safer than a lot of everyday life situations.
Making Roller Coasters Safer Than Toasters
When the first roller coaster was built in 1884, safety standards were far less stringent than today. For instance, some roller coasters didn’t even have a seat belt or had loose lap bolts. This meant that there were incidents where people fell out of roller coasters, sometimes through bizarre situations such as taking off their coat in the middle of the ride.
Eventually, the industry became more proactive with safety measures and came up with designs that would decrease risks outside their control. For example, Disney World developed a “smart” seat belt that is linked to the ride’s control system. The vehicle won’t move until each seatbelt is secured and guests cannot unlock the belt until the ride stops.
Moreover, theme parks aim to learn from failures and share lessons to ensure “no mistake happens twice”. Even though their operators and manufacturers are competitive in areas like developing attractions and trade secrets, they are notably cooperative in sharing safety improvement tips.
Over time, proactive safety management turned theme parks into one of the safest industries, even though their success builds on the adrenaline rush of its visitors. Nowadays, the chance of sustaining a serious injury on a fixed-site park ride is 1 in 15.5 million, making it statistically safer than toasters from which 700 people perish every year worldwide.
The Rigorous Inspection Process
Next to pioneering safety engineering and sharing lessons, another aspect that stands out in the safety management of theme parks is the depth and frequency of their safety inspections.
In order to be compliant, theme park rides need to follow the standards of the ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials). For example, the ASTM standards set precise G-force thresholds that rides must meet to be deemed safe.
Jim Seay, president and owner of Premier Rides, said in an interview in 2023 with USA Today that they have very detailed and prescriptive requirements for inspections. “Each ride is tested every day of operation. On top of that, separate weekly and monthly inspections are done to check for various things, including wear and tear”.
The extent to which a roller coaster gets tested every morning is indeed time-consuming – for example, Thorpe Park in England spends over 8 man-hours every day inspecting one of its big coasters before the park opens. That means that theme parks’ safety procedures need to be extremely efficient and reliable, and they often make use of helpful tools such as safety inspection software.
Not just large companies are required to meet regulations to make sure their roller coasters are safe. Small fair rides undergo a rigorous inspection process as well. For example, the inspection for fair rides in New York has three stages. When a ride arrives at a fair, each individual part needs to be inspected. Once everything is assembled, they inspect it again and then there is a third inspection that is conducted as the operator runs the ride.
What Can We Learn from Theme Parks and Their Safety Management?
There are two key points you can take away from theme parks for the safety management of your company.
Firstly, there is their innovative and proactive nature to come up with new ways to make rides more reliable, and to learn from each other. You can encourage your company to engineer solutions to make your workplace safer, even when you think you already have processes in place that have been proven to work. It’s like continually refining the gears of a well-oiled machine – even if it seems to be working fine, there’s always room for improvement.
Moreover, by engaging with peers to share safety lessons, you ultimately make your company and your overall industry safer.
Secondly, you can adapt frequent safety inspections within your safety management. By going above the obliged number of inspections, you can significantly improve your overall safety on-site. That might mean you need to upgrade your existing management, but it’s worth it in the long run.
Although your company might not be under as much of a magnifying glass as theme parks, fostering a strong safety culture benefits organizations in any industry. Ultimately, safety management isn’t just about creating policies and procedures; it’s about ensuring that people understand and follow them diligently. Or as Walt Disney said himself – “You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality”.
