The Networks of Walt Disney World
One of my college essays was about the trash cans at Disney World. In this essay I talked about one of Disney’s secrets to keeping the park feel magical, the trash cans. There is more behind the scenes of Disney than just the trash cans. Magic Kingdom is built on top of a series of tunnels (nine acres total) that run under the park, connecting the different parts of the park for cast members and other employees. These tunnels allow for characters to enter and exit the park without park-goers even noticing who they are. The characters will enter the tunnels, called Utilidors, where they can find their costumes, get changed, stretch and warm up, and get to their location in the park without actually walking through the whole park to get there. Another function of the tunnels is for the trash. Not only can trash be taken out of the park discreetly, but there is a fancy system that helps with the removal. Disney is home to the Swedish designed garbage disposal service called the Automatic Vacuum Collection System, also known as AVAC. This system sends waste through tubes at around 60 mph to allow for it to be gathered and sorted to then be either compressed or recycled and taken off of Disney property.
The underground tunnels of Walt Disney World can be viewed of as a network graph like we talked about in class at the beginning of the semester. You could almost think of it as having two “Compounds” where the first compound is anything in Magic Kingdom above the tunnel and the second compound is anything within the tunnels. While that isn’t true because there are links between the two compounds (making it be one big compound) for now we will view it as two separate compounds. The characters and workers in the tunnels have their own links between each other, they may be helping each other get ready, serving food to one another, or transporting the characters from one end of the park to another. These links between each other in the tunnels form one compound. Then the other compound is made up of the links above the tunnels in the actual park. These links consist of relationships between park-goers and characters, park-goers with each other, and some character interaction with each other. However, in this compound some of the characters that interacted with each other in the tunnel compound aren’t allowed to interact above the tunnels in order to keep the Disney magic alive. The links that do realistically exist, causing the entirety of Disney world (tunnels or not) to be one compound instead of two, are links that form at the intersection points. Think of it as if there are two floors of people, the people on the first floor all have connections with each other and the people on the second floor have connections with each other, but there are only a few links between the floors where intersections can happen such as stairwells and elevators, otherwise the remain separate. These floors are like the tunnels of Disney and the actual park that is accessible to park-goers. These network graphs are good to use in large examples outside of a group of friends or small population of people that work together. Being able to show the significance of the network graphs in a large scenario such as Disney World can really show how useful networks is to the real world and how we can use it to analyze behavior and figure out best practices to maximize profits, increase enjoyment, and become more efficient.
Link: https://orlandoinsidervacations.com/the-secret-underworld-of-walt-disney-world/