In short: Custom design means fitting the ride to five hard constraints - site, regulation, budget, throughput and maintenance - in seven steps from site data to layout.
A buyer often arrives with a picture: a coaster over a lake, a wheel beside a mountain. Sometimes that picture is buildable. Often it is buildable only after something else changes — the budget, the site, or the ride type.
The most expensive mistake in park design is choosing equipment before understanding the site. A ride that does not fit leaves you with three bad options: move the ride (redesign), shrink the ride (new calculation), or accept a layout that nobody will enjoy operating.
The right order is: site and visitor profile first, ride mix second, models third. Everything on this page follows that order.
| Constraint | What it fixes | What it rules out |
|---|---|---|
| Site | Available footprint, terrain, soil bearing capacity, access roads, height limit, neighbouring structures | Rides that need more room, deeper foundations or a taller clearance than the site allows |
| Regulation | Governing standard, local approval route, required certification, language of documentation | Designs that pass EN 13814 but fail a local requirement — or the reverse |
| Budget | Total investment including civil works, foundations, installation and spares | Ride types whose civil works alone exceed the budget |
| Throughput | Visitors per day, peak-hour factor, dwell time per ride | Under-sized rides that queue, over-sized rides that sit idle |
| Maintenance | Local technical staff, spare-part access, power stability, climate | Rides that need skills or parts the operator cannot sustain |
Notice that four of the five have nothing to do with the ride model. That is the point: by the time the model is chosen, most of the design is already decided.
Throughput is where most park plans go wrong, in both directions. This is the calculation we run before recommending any model.
Take the target daily visitors and divide by operating hours, then apply a peak factor. A park targeting 3,000 visitors over 8 hours with a weekend peak factor of 2.5 needs to handle roughly:
3,000 ÷ 8 × 2.5 ≈ 940 visitors per peak hour
Capacity per hour depends on cycle time, not on how many seats exist:
hourly capacity = (3,600 ÷ cycle seconds) × seats × load factor
For an observation wheel with 36 cabins × 6 seats, a 12-minute cycle and a realistic 80% load factor:
(3,600 ÷ 720) × 216 × 0.8 ≈ 864 visitors per hour
One wheel therefore absorbs most of a 940-per-hour peak. A ride with a 3-minute cycle
and 24 seats carries only about 384 per hour — three of them would be needed
to match the wheel. These figures are worked examples: use the actual parameters of the
model you are offered.
Visitors do not all want the same ride, so the mix is balanced by age group and by intensity: one anchor ride, two to four family rides, a children’s zone, and one or two high-thrill units. The anchor carries the queue; the smaller rides spread the crowd and increase dwell time.
If you send us your target visitor numbers and site dimensions, we will run this calculation for your site — including the option you did not ask about, because a smaller anchor plus more family rides is often the better business case.
| # | Step | What happens | Typical time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Site data & brief | You send dimensions, terrain, photos, budget range and target visitors. We confirm what is missing. | 1-3 days |
| 2 | Concept layout | Ride selection, 2D layout, initial throughput estimate, indicative budget split. | 3-5 working days |
| 3 | Feasibility check | Foundation and soil assumptions, power capacity, access and evacuation routes, height and clearance limits against local rules. | 1-2 weeks |
| 4 | Scope freeze & quotation | Final ride list, civil works boundary (who builds what), payment schedule, delivery terms. | 1 week |
| 5 | Detailed design | Structural calculation, manufacturing drawings, foundation drawings, electrical schematics, operation manual outline. | 2-4 weeks |
| 6 | Production | Runs against the seven quality control points; photo updates at each stage. | 30-75 days |
| 7 | Installation & commissioning | Engineer dispatch or remote supervision, trial run, staff training, handover of the quality file. | 2-4 weeks on site |
The step that most projects underestimate is step 3. A concept layout takes days; checking whether the ground, the power supply and the local approval route actually support it takes weeks. Skipping it moves the discovery to the construction site, where changes cost ten times more.
Step 6 is not a black box either: the seven control points that production runs against are described in the seven quality control points, with the records each one produces.
The faster this list is complete, the faster the first layout is useful rather than decorative.
Being clear about limits is more useful than promising everything. What we can change, and what we cannot, divides cleanly:
| Freely customizable | Customizable with recalculation | Not customizable |
|---|---|---|
| Colours and livery Theme and character design Cabin interior and seating finish Lighting and audio Signage language Optional accessories |
Track layout and route Span and height (within the model family) Seat count and cabin configuration Foundation type Control system brand |
Safety clearances Braking distance Structural member sections (without a new calculation) Maximum passenger load Guard and restraint geometry |
If a request lands in the third column, the answer is not “no” — it is “that is a new design, and here is what it costs”. A ride whose structure is changed without recalculating the load cases is no longer the ride that was certified.
| Standard model | Custom design | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Lower — drawings and tooling already exist | Higher — design and tooling are project-specific |
| Lead time | Shorter | Longer by the design phase |
| Spare parts | Stocked, interchangeable | Model-specific, we keep tooling and drawings for 10 years |
| Fit to site | Site must adapt to the ride | Ride adapts to the site |
| Best when | The site is regular, the budget is fixed, the park needs to open fast | The site is irregular or constrained, or the park needs a signature attraction |
Many projects are a mix: standard models for the family and children’s zones, one custom anchor. That is usually the best use of the budget — the anchor creates the identity, the standard rides carry the throughput.
Whichever route you take, the structure behind it goes through the same verification — see how the structure is verified.
Typically four to seven months: two to four weeks for concept and feasibility, two to four weeks for detailed design, 30-75 days of production, and two to four weeks on site. Civil works usually run in parallel with production and are often the critical path.
Yes, and it is one of the most common requests. Send the plan with dimensions and any height restrictions; the constraint usually changes the ride type rather than preventing the project.
Theme, colours and cabin finish can be changed later with limited impact. Anything that affects structure, clearances or passenger load cannot — that requires a new calculation and a new approval.
We provide foundation drawings and load data. Local civil works are normally built by a local contractor to our drawings, which is cheaper and simpler than importing a crew. We review the foundation before the ride arrives.
Local approval is the operator’s responsibility, but we provide the documentation that approval requires: calculation report, drawings, material certificates and test records. Tell us the destination country at inquiry stage so the design follows the right standard from the start — see which standard applies to your country.
Then we change the mix, not the safety. Removing a ride, reducing seat count within the same model family, or phasing the park in two stages are all normal outcomes. What we will not do is reduce structural sections to hit a price.
We can design a ride of the same type and capacity. We do not copy a competitor’s protected design, and we will tell you when a request crosses that line.
Tell us the ride type, site size and target opening date. We reply within one working day.
