On Friday, October 12th, DEN had a major hiccup. The train between concourses broke down. AND they had seemingly no "plan b" TSA just stopped running...



On the ground floor in the background you can see everyone who was already screened and in the train area just standing. The front of the picture has people waiting to be screened. We're on the upper floor and you can see the line wraps around the back of the top...



After a very long time standing waiting we were all routed through A concourse

which is in no way set up to handle that much traffic. We were 5 minutes late to the gate but they luckily delayed most planes by a few minutes.

What I can't believe is that they don't have a plan b.... not even a walkway instead of taking the train? For people who departed B or C they went through A to get screened then bused to B and C.

What a mess.

As this is not a general travel topic and pertains to one particular airport, we'll move this to the more appropriate Destination forum. Thanks! /JY1024, TravelBuzz co-moderator

They couldnt let more people through due to fire codes. if the train aint moving there is only so many people who can stand in the tram area. thus they shut down the security check point.

They didnt build an alternate walking path to the trams because DIA was way over budget. thus when this happens you are SOL.

This was talked about on another thread with the stoppage.

What I am not sure if this was independent of the Hotel construction or because of it. they are building an airport hotel right next to the airport.

Sorry... I missed the other thread.

Plan B is busing people to and from concourses B and C, and the skybridge to concourse A. It's not a very efficient Plan B, but it does exist.

And no, it wasn't "budget cuts" that prevented ATL-style pedestrian connections between councourses. It was arrogance and over-reliance on technology in the early 90s when the airport was built. Pedestrian walkways were never considered in the plan. The thought was that the trains would be so reliable that such walkways would never be needed. So far, the trains have been almost as reliable as they planned, but the exceptions create the chaos you saw.

They were very shortsighted in their planning then.

There is a realistic and measureable chance power goes out or a system malfunction occurs.

Well, duh.

This has happened three times that I am aware of in 20 years, so a lot depends on your definition of "realistic and measurable." <shrugs>

Also keep in mind that the airport was built in 1994, well before DHS, TSA, 9/11 and the security theatre we have today.

I flew into it shortly after it was born.

The issue is when it comes to emergency/contingency planning which existed long before 9/11.

In planning this you say what happens if there is a power outage, a tornado hits, a snow storm hits, a wind storm hits and what could happen.

In planning many other construction projects like tunnels in case a fire happens in the tunnel they have a crew stationed there and they have a separate tunnel people can walk through to exit.

OK by me. You seem to be an expert on this; perhaps you can find some time in your schedule to get some consulting in with DIA.

3 days out 18 years is a 99.95% success rate.

Cost benefit analysis...

In 18 years how much has it cost the airport for deal with the 3 times the trains stopped running.

vs.

The cost to build/maintain walkways

I think they made the right call.

Check back when a tornado hits the airport...

Not sure what you are saying. A tornado won't hit the train, which is underground. If the tornado causes power outages that prevent the train from running, you could still run buses. Even if in a freakish set of circumstances it took out the train's power source AND destroyed the entire DIA bus fleet, you could still easily bring in buses from outside the airport to move people to/from the terminals (though the airport would likely be closed if the destruction was that bad, meaning you'd only have to remove people in the terminals, not bus new pax out.)

Indeed, it's only about 12 hours out of over 150,000 hours, and that's north of a 99.99% success rate. Pretty close to six sigma level.