Anyone who has been to Efteling knows this: a wait of minutes and sometimes over an hour before you can enter the attraction. If anyone knows how to make the most of a day in Efteling, it's software developer Jan van Kampen (33). He created the Eftelstats website and app. This shows wait times and disruptions to attractions. But with all the data it collects, it can do so much more. “It's curious what a chatbot can discover using this data.”
Van Campen wanted to see if he could use artificial intelligence to extract all kinds of information about attractions from the huge amount of data stored by Eftelstats. “I sent a huge spreadsheet to a very advanced chatbot. It analyzes a whole year, thirteen thousand pages of A4-sized data, in five seconds and then comes up with the answer.”
According to him, any ordinary person can now conduct research. “Ten years ago, an outside agency spent months on this, and five years ago, this also cost data analysts weeks of work.” Van Campen tested the chatbot by asking it which attraction had the highest number of malfunctions. “This turned out to be Python with 233 occurrences, but I also got the total and average outage duration.”
Furthermore, the chatbot reported that in February there were almost no roller coaster malfunctions. If an attraction is not used for a long period due to maintenance, it is not considered a malfunction. But the chatbot realized that this was not the case that month. “The chatbot even made suggestions about why there were more outages in Python. This is a very powerful tool for analyzing the performance of each attraction individually.”
“Efteling still has a lot of steps to take.”
Van Campen also asked how many days there is an average wait of twenty minutes or more at each attraction between noon and four in the afternoon. Efteling recently announced that it aims to have wait times of less than twenty minutes at all attractions. “My data shows that the park still has some steps to take, but the park can still tweak many buttons to achieve this goal.”
About IftelStats
Van Kampen started his website Eftelstats in 2015, followed later by an app. “In my training, I was allowed to get a lot of data about Premier League matches. I hate football and that's why I chose the waiting times in Efteling, which I found more interesting.”
Eftelstats quickly gained popularity among visitors, because the application automatically sends a message in the event of a malfunction, and also if the waiting time falls below a certain number of minutes. This function has not been present in Efteling's own application for a long time.
The data in the application is updated every thirty seconds and is therefore also stored.
Van Kempen has thoughts on that. According to him, it is also possible to plot an ideal route that will allow you to visit as many sights as possible. The chatbot can retrieve days when a thunderstorm occurred based on information provided by the IT specialist. “It was sometimes when all the roller coasters outside suddenly closed. Then all the queues there disappeared. It was interesting to see where all those people went. So suddenly I saw longer lines at Fata Morgana.”
“Asking questions to a chatbot is difficult.”
The IT professional will not advertise his huge table. “I think Efteling appreciates that, because it contains a lot of relevant business information. Van Kampen is convinced that Efteling itself is already using this kind of data research and artificial intelligence to improve the park. “It is a very innovative company and has very creative people. “.
However, he really likes the fact that, as a bycatch of Eftelstats, he can find out a lot about the park's attractions. “I could also check it out, but this is and always will be a hobby for me.”
Top 5
Last year, these were the top 5 attractions with a minimum wait of 20 minutes at peak times between twelve and four.
- Symbolica – 275 days
- Dream trip – 220 days
- Flying Dutchman – 217 days
- Baron 1898 – 191 days
- Topherban returns – 158 days
