Fun With Statistics 2012

[Gutterflower]

Hey guys

I do this every year but it is becoming harder and harder to find new statistics each year.

So I will probably update this with new things as I think of them/when people suggest them

 

Anyhow here's a couple of new ones

 

This is the number of coasters over the last 20 years built vs the number closed. As you will notice we are always in the positive.

 

2000 was clearly a great year for coasters but 2007 despite being the 2nd highest for number of new coasters in the last 20 years it also had the most number of coasters closed.

 

Notably the number of new coasters is reasonably consistent, However the number of coasters getting the chop seems to be shrinking slightly. This goes against how I thought the economic crisis would work. I'd Be interested to hear people's thoughts on this?

 

I began to wonder how this broke down continentally so the graph below shows the % of coasters opened in each year belonging to Asia and America.

 

As many people here will be more interested in Europe here is the same graph but replacing America with Europe

 

I find this quite interesting as the recent Chinese coaster boom massively influences the Asian graph and starts to kick in in 2009 where there is also a severe drop off in American coasters. I wonder what caused this? I suppose each Manufacturer has a finite # of coasters they can build each year. If they are being built in Asia they can't be built in the US? Europe did pretty well over the last few years but seems to be dropping off a bit in 2012

 

From this I wondered if wooden coasters were affected by the Chinese boom so below are wooden coasters built over the last 20 years.

 

For me the most interesting thing here... 2000 had 16 new woodies... 7 of those are closed already. Which is pretty shocking really. However this graph shows nothing we didnt expect.

 

Going a bit more general we have the top roller-coaster owning countries

 

 

This clearly puts the US top with China 2nd and the UK sits a pretty good 4th. However this next graph shows the population according to the last census (mostly 2011 but occasionally slightly older if data is not available) against the number of coasters. The lower the number the better as in theory you don't have to queue so long.

 

 

So the moral of the story is if you like coasters don't live in Inida... but Denmark (and Scandinavia in general) does OK.

 

HOWEVER........ does that tell the whole story? Below is a graph showing the Total Area Of Country/Number Of Coasters.... In theory the higher the number the less far you have to travel to ride a roller coaster.

 

 

The Netherlands wins that battle but you may have noticed the UK does pretty well across the board.... SO PEOPLE IN THE UK STOP COMPLAINING THE SWARM ISN'T THAT BAD:P

 

However statistics are stupid ad CAN be interesting. The Saying "Lies, Damn Lies & Statistics" applies here. but in this case they can be fun

 

More soon

 

Cheers

Dave

 

(NOTE: all stats are taken from the RCDB and relocations are ignored. The RCDB is not 100% accurate but myself and several others make it as accurate as possible.)

[XYZ]

I'm very entertained by these statistics. The US probably dropped in % on the US/Asia graph due to the recession. Keep up with the good work!

[simaticable]

Where would relocated coasters go? Would they count as new coasters, or did you guys eave them out?

[Oryp]

These stats are pretty interesting and fun. Thanks a lot for taking the time to do this! Also, simaticable, the OP said (albeit in tiny font at the bottom of the post) that relocations were ignored.

[simaticable]

^Alright, didn't see that.

[Gutterflower]

Sorry I should have specified,

The whole thing is based off the RCDB. So for example Goliath was built in 2008 but before that was Batman: The Ride at SF:NO up until 2007. SO it counts as a ride dismantled in 2007 but built in 2008. However in the grand scheme of things it really doesn't matter.

[Voxelmatic]

This is pretty interesting! I love how barely any coasters have closed this year .

[Hercules]

I'll put 1 million clams on China overtaking the US in roller coasters by 2016, as well as many other more important things.

[Gutterflower]

All the talk of Mice coasters in China got me thinking

Turns out that more than 1/3 of coasters in China are Mice.

 

The green section is comprised of all the rides that don't fall into the Family\Kiddie\Mice categories which in theory should be comprised of more thrilling (although not always good) rides.

 

Note: this is using the RCDB Category system which is pretty accurate but not 100% perfect. But I think It's pretty close.

[SharkTums]

You have way too much free time!

 

Seriously though, I believe my breakdown of the China Coasters on the trip was 90% Crap, 8% Decent, 2% Good. Looking at your graphs it may actually be less than that 2%!

[larrygator]

I'll put 1 million clams on China overtaking the US in roller coasters by 2016, as well as many other more important things.

 

I'd put 1 million clams on China already having more coasters than the US, they just haven't been documented yet.