Ski smarter, not harder.
Vail Resorts has released a smartphone app to give skiiers real-time wait information about lines at ski lifts this winter.
According to the Denver Post, the new crowdsourced technology—dubbed EpicMix Time—crunches numbers and tracks up-to-the minute wait times at 55 core lifts and gondolas for skiiers at Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge and Keystone. It will ramp up to offer the same service to other prominent ski resorts in Lake Tahoe, CA. and Utah during the 2016-17 season as well.
"EpicMix Time delivers time transparency to our guests, showing them lift line wait times across the mountain, providing them with information to choose where to ski and ride, and giving them more time on the slopes," Kirsten Lynch, executive vice president and chief marketing officer of Vail Resorts, said in a press release statement. "This is just another innovation from our team that introduces more digital technology to the mountain in a way that does not interfere with the guest experience or the incredible beauty of our mountain resorts."
Added Vail Resorts' executive vice president and chief information officer Robert Urwiler: "Providing real-time lift line wait times is a first for the ski industry. Similar to apps showing traffic flow, like Google Maps or Waze, we're applying unique and sophisticated analytics to aggregated, anonymous location data generated by smart phones and other mobile devices across the distinct topography and layout of our chairlifts to calculate reliable wait time information for our guests."
If it's something that saves time, people are generally going to be interested. This should take off...quicker than any ski lift.
