MAPE Explained – Theme Park Definition

MAPE (Mean Absolute Percentage Error) expresses prediction accuracy as a percentage rather than an absolute number of minutes. Instead of saying "off by 8 minutes," it says "off by 15% of the actual wait time." This makes it useful for comparing accuracy across attractions with very different typical queues — a 10-minute error means something very different on a ride that usually has a 15-minute wait versus one that usually has 90 minutes.

MAPE can be misleadingly high when actual wait times are very short (e.g., a 2-minute wait where even a 1-minute error is 50%). For this reason, park.fan shows MAPE alongside MAE and RMSE rather than as the sole accuracy metric.