When Disney’s Magic Kingdom opened in Orlando on October 1, 1971, just over 10,000 guests attended the park’s opening day. To put that in perspective, Magic Kingdom now averages almost 50,000 guests per day, and in 2023, 245 million people visited the top 25 theme parks in the world. That number is up from 199 million in 2022, meaning most parks have matched or exceeded pre-pandemic attendance numbers. 

The numbers don’t lie: Amusement park popularity has grown exponentially in the last 50-plus years, and all signs point to continued growth for the industry, especially in emerging markets such as Asia and South America. With the pandemic mostly behind us, parks have begun looking toward the future again. And while the fundamentals haven’t changed (big drops still equal big thrills), new technology is shaping the experience of amusement parks, and ASTM International is continuing to develop standards to keep pace with a changing world.

A Booming Industry

ASTM’s committee on amusement rides and devices (F24) was established in 1978 with the goal of standardizing the safety requirements and functionality of the booming amusement park industry. The committee’s standard practice for design of amusement rides and devices (F2291) is an essential standard, which addresses all that goes into designing larger mechanical rides, establishing a set of guidelines to ensure functionality and safety across all aspects of ride development and maintenance. Other key standards include: the standard practice for quality, manufacture, and construction of amusement rides and devices (F1193) and the standard practice for ownership, operation, maintenance, and inspection of amusement rides and devices (F770).

Justin Schwartz, senior director of engineering and safety at Universal Creative and chair of the subcommittee on design, manufacture, installation, and commissioning (F24.24), says that these three core standards are “especially critical because they establish the foundational elements necessary for safe and reliable amusement ride design, manufacturing, and operation.”

These standards, along with the committee’s 23 other operational standards, cover a wide range of aspects of the amusement park experience. All were developed with the goal of helping companies innovate and keep pace with the ever-changing amusement park industry, while ensuring rides are safer for the public. 

“F24 standards are widely recognized as the industry’s best, primarily due to their continuous and rigorous development process,” Schwartz explains. “They are regularly reviewed, updated, and refined by leading experts from across the amusement industry, including manufacturers, operators, engineers, inspectors, and regulatory authorities. This collaborative approach ensures that ASTM standards remain responsive to technological advancements, emerging trends, and real-world operational experiences.”

New Technology

Since F24’s inception, the touchstone of amusement parks has been the roller coaster. Roller coaster manufacturers will continue to push the limits when it comes to height, velocity, and gravity-defying curls, but the fundamentals will remain largely the same in the near future: Big drops and fast rides equal happy guests. 

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While new technology may not change the fundamentals of roller coasters themselves, technology is changing how users experience those rides. Many major theme parks (like Universal Studios in Japan) have begun incorporating virtual (VR) and augmented reality (AR) on their rides to create a more immersive ride experience. 

 “While these technologies currently present challenges such as capacity constraints, cleanliness, and operational complexity, their potential is substantial,” Schwartz says. “As guests increasingly carry their own personal devices into parks, VR and AR technologies will offer greater opportunities for creating deeply immersive, personalized, and interconnected amusement experiences.”

Committee member Jim Seay, president and owner of Premier Rides, says that new technology like AR and VR will affect multiple aspects of the amusement park industry. “For the destination attractions, this means creating immersive experiences that blur the lines of reality and transport guests to a place they never thought they could go,” he says. “For the regional and family parks, this means providing new, amazing thrill rides that just a few years ago one might have thought could only be experienced at a destination resort.”

Greg White, chief operating officer at ProSlide Technology and F24 member, says that similar technological innovations are happening at water parks. “Technology is being integrated into ride experiences through storytelling, theming, and immersive effects,” he says. “However, parks must balance innovation with practicality.”

Standards are already being developed to help companies integrate this new technology. “Within the subcommittee on design, manufacture, installation and commissioning (F24.24), several task groups are actively addressing emerging technologies,” Schwartz says. “For instance, we have a dedicated task group focused on AR and VR technologies, where we have developed new requirements related to equipment inertial effects and are currently developing new requirements for cleanliness protocols.”

With new technology comes new safety concerns, which is why F24 is already developing a risk-assessment standard (WK78433) that incorporates new and developing technology. The standard “creates a clear path to evaluating design and operations including as it relates to new technology,” Seay says. “The industry already has a very impressive, documented safety record and the guidance of the new risk-assessment standard will allow new technologies to be used with safety as the highest criteria.

Ride Manufacturing

It’s not just the user experience that’s changing. The technology used to operate and manufacture rides themselves is changing, too. 

“When designing new experiences, VR and AR have become invaluable tools for the industry, making it easier and more cost-effective to visualize, iterate, and refine concepts. Advanced computing and visualization technologies allow us to accelerate our design processes, iterate concepts rapidly, and achieve capabilities previously thought impossible,” Schwartz says. “A prime example is magnetic launch systems for roller coasters. Prior to this innovation, launching coasters relied heavily on complicated mechanical systems that had significant limitations. Today, magnetic launch technology has become standard, delivering rides that are more thrilling, reliable, and safer for guests.”

Additive manufacturing may also play a role in producing materials for rides, according to Roland Eijkelenbergh, manager of engineering at Vekoma Rides Manufacturing and committee member. “3D printing of steel is rather new to the industry, and it will still take a while to produce fatigue-loaded components with this method,” he says. “But this is a development that will be possible in the near future.”

Efficiency is also key, and new technology — like automation — is helping ride manufacturers achieve that goal. “Robotizing parts of our production process to reduce the amount of labor by people to speed up the production process and maintain our quality is another aspect of new technology in our industry,” Eijkelenbergh says. 

Water parks are also using technology to function more efficiently. “Smart scales allow operators to quickly verify rider weight limits,” White says. “And CCTV systems enable better ride monitoring without requiring direct line of sight, improving safety without burdening staff.”

Along with developing new rides, Eijkelenbergh thinks that technology will help more efficiently maintain the rides that are already completed, leading to more efficient maintenance and repairs of existing rides. “The gathering of ride data will turn the traditional maintenance schedules into a predictive maintenance schedule,” he says.

International Development

Once generally confined to North America and Europe, amusement parks have become a global phenomenon. Parks in Asia have exploded in popularity over the last decade — Japan’s top three parks alone totaled 44 million guests in 2023 — and markets in the Middle East and South America are booming. While the U.S. and China are still major innovators and remain the top two countries for global attendance, other regions are starting to join the party. 

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“There is a lot of global focus currently on the Middle East with both the UAE and Saudi Arabia making very significant investments into the amusement park and attractions industry,” Seay says. “The rides being developed are absolutely cutting edge with a goal of setting the bar very high for innovation.”

Safety is a top priority at these parks abroad, as they are in the U.S., and ASTM standards help make that safety a reality. ASTM works with its Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) program member countries, as well as other partner countries, to bring the highest level of standards to all nations working in the amusement park industry. 

“ASTM has constantly raised the bar on a global basis,” Seay says. “The 1,000-plus members of F24 are all global ambassadors of safety and many of them travel the globe encouraging the adoption of standards. And even if ours is not the formally adopted standard, it is often the impetus for having standards.”

“There are also very clear examples where the MOU program directly resulted in F24 adoption in developing nations, which rapidly accelerated that nation’s passion for safety,” Seay explains. 

Seay says that certain ASTM standards make a particular impact in the global amusement park industry, especially the standard practice for ownership, operation, maintenance, and inspection of amusement rides and devices (F770). 

“Regulatory entities reference F770 more often than other standards as it provides strong and clear guidance for how a park can function safely,” he says. “The requirements of the standard are also quite prescriptive, which allows regulatory officials and third-party experts the ability to audit a park’s performance per the standards and provide input for improved conformance. From a global standpoint, I have seen in developing nations that F770 is one of the top core standards that any country can adopt and immediately make a positive impact when it comes to safety.”

As the amusement park industry continues to grow abroad, so, too, does ASTM’s network of international partners who set standards that help make rides safer and allow companies to innovate more efficiently. 

Looking Toward the Future

Guests still want the classic thrills, but they also want to be told a story. Many want to be in the story. Industry experts see themed, immersive experiences as the future of amusement parks, where guests can move freely within rides and become active participants in the story each ride tells. 

“Our industry is increasingly integrating theatrical elements into rides, creating richer, more immersive experiences for guests,” Schwartz says. “Interactivity is another growing aspect, becoming layered into many attractions to engage guests more deeply and personally with the ride experience.”

As with any new development, new safety concerns will emerge as rides become more immersive and guests have more freedom to move around. 

“The challenge,” Seay says, “becomes the more the attraction gets immersive and ‘real’ the less the guest is thinking about safety, which becomes a challenge that needs to be addressed through effective design and operation.”

The amusement rides and devices committee is already addressing the safety needs created by interactive rides, whether it be by updating existing standards or beginning to develop new ones. “The entire F24 suite of standards is increasingly addressing patron-directed attractions, recognizing the growing importance of interactivity within the amusement industry,” Schwartz says.

In the future, the sky may be the limit for taller and faster roller coasters, but advances in the virtual world are happening today. That’s why ASTM is developing standards to help companies innovate efficiently and introduce these new technologies safely. So while roller coasters will continue to take guests to new heights, new technology is creating new worlds of possibilities for the amusement park experience. “With the new media-based technical advances combined with AR and VR breakthroughs,” Seay says, “there is no limit to the type of attractions that can be created.” ●

Donovan Swift is managing editor of Standardization News.