At Walt Disney World, You Can Sit Back, Relax and Leave the Driving to.. Stitch!?

The power of Stitch drives the buses at Walt Disney World

While visiting Walt Disney World, you no doubt have seen many of Disney Transportation’s buses. Most often, the marquee on the buses reads where the bus is headed, be it to a park or a resort. Sometimes you might even spot a bus whose marquee reads VIP CAST MEMBER when it is in fact porting around Disney Cast Members. In the past, you might have even seen a bus whose marquee was completely blank. And you might have also seen marquees sporting the names of Disney characters.

Stitch is the latest alumni to have the distinct honor of having his name on the Disney buses. Others have included Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Remy, Snow White, Ariel and more — even the Aristocats have been granted the honor. In fact, the character’s name designates the version of the very special software that runs on each of those Disney buses, a program called Magic-in-Motion.

The keystone to Magic-in-Motion is the use of Global Positioning System (GPS). Now virtually a household word, GPS allows Magic-in-Motion to perform most of its tasks — from the most mundane all the way to pie in the sky feats. On its very basic level, the GPS allows Disney Transportation to monitor the location of all of its buses in real-time. Although I won’t get into it too much here, this has proven to be a bit of a double-edged sword, even for guests.

Interestingly enough, the Disney’s Magical Express buses also have added GPS technology over the years and that’s what triggers playing the videos. As an aside, the videos have also been moved to a chip as opposed to the original DVD versions. But back to the Disney Transportation buses and the Magic-in-Motion program.

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