Capacity Analysis of Åre Ski Resort: A Jackson Network Approach

Sammanfattning: Åre ski resort is the largest and most renowned ski resort in Sweden, offering excellent skiing opportunities, restaurants, and nightlife in a prime location. Meanwhile, it is often subject to heavy traffic during the peak season and has earned a bad reputation for struggling with long lift queues. To address the issue, this paper aimed at analyzing the current capacity of the ski resort with the purpose of identifying areas and cost-efficient measures for improvement. It was done by modeling the ski system as a Jackson Network based on queuing theory, with relevant parameters extracted from actual skier data provided by the operating company Skistar. Several models were constructed to capture varying skiing patterns throughout the day and under different weather conditions. The models suggested that the lift queues first start to form at the lifts VM 8:an, Sadelexpressen, and Bräckeliften when the number of skiers in the system ranges from 3,700 to 6,200. Recommendations were then proposed to Skistar on how to resolve the identified bottlenecks and increase the resort’s capacity to a range of 6,000 to 8,400 skiers. Lastly, the models estimated that the resort could