Documentation & help

Getting started

Achtbaan is a free directory of 103 of the world's major roller coasters. Open the home page and you land straight in the explorer: a grid of coaster cards, each showing the ride's park, country, type, key stats and a single transparent thrill score. There is nothing to install and nothing to sign up for.

Each card lists the real height, top speed, length, number of inversions, opening year and manufacturer, plus a short description and, for many rides, a real photo. Click Compare on any card to add it to a side-by-side comparison (see Comparing coasters).

Filtering & search

The toolbar above the grid narrows the list instantly as you change it:

• Search: type any part of a name, park, country or manufacturer into the search box; the grid filters as you type. If nothing matches, the explorer suggests the coaster or park you probably meant and, with several filters set, which one to drop.
• Type: limit to Steel, Wood or Hybrid coasters.
• Country: pick a country to see only its rides. The list of countries is built from the data, so it always matches what is available.
• My rides: show All coasters, only the ones you have Ridden, or the ones Not ridden yet (handy when planning your next park). It uses your ride log.
• Height, speed, opening year and inversions: drag the two handles of each range slider to set a minimum and a maximum. The ranges come from the real data, so the sliders always span the lowest and highest values in the directory. Pull the inversions maximum down to 0 to see only coasters that never turn you upside down.

The result count under the toolbar updates live so you always know how many coasters match. Filters and search combine; for example, wooden coasters in the United States sorted by height. Every active filter appears as a chip above the rankings: remove one with its ×, or clear them all at once. If nothing matches, the empty grid offers the same one-click reset.

Sorting the rankings

Use the Sort by control to re-order the whole grid. You can rank by:

• Thrill score: the default; highest first.
• Top speed, Height and Length: biggest first.
• Newest: most recently opened first.
• Most inversions: the coasters that turn you upside down most often first (ties by thrill score). Our guide to roller coaster inversions explains what counts as one.

Sorting respects your current filters, so you can, say, find the fastest steel coaster in a single country. Jump straight to the ranked list any time with the Rankings link in the header.

Comparing coasters

Tick the Compare checkbox on any two or more cards. A comparison bar appears at the bottom of the screen showing your selection; press Compare there and Achtbaan builds a side-by-side table of every stat: park, country, type, thrill score, speed, height, length, inversions and opening year. The best value in each row is highlighted with a ★ so the winner of each metric is obvious. Use Clear to start a new comparison.

The last row shows where each coaster stands in your own ride log: ridden, on your Want to ride list, or not yet. Every comparison is also a link: the address bar holds it while the table is open, and Copy link to this comparison under the table copies it, so you can bookmark it or send it to whoever you are arguing with. Each coaster page starts one too: under Similar coasters, a link compares that coaster with its closest match.

Your ride log

Press + Mark ridden on any coaster card to log a ride; the button changes to ✓ Ridden, and pressing it again undoes it. The My coaster count panel at the top of the explorer then shows how many of the 103 coasters you have ridden and builds your thrill profile: the parks and countries you have visited, the total number of inversions you have survived, your most-ridden coaster type, and the tallest and fastest coasters on your list.

Back from a day out? Open Log a park visit in the same panel, choose the park, tick the coasters you rode and press Add rides: the whole visit goes into your log at once, and coasters already in it are shown as such. Logged coasters leave your Want to ride list, as they do everywhere else.

A progress bar shows how far you are from your next milestone: 5, 10, 25, 50 and 100 rides, and finally the whole directory.

Your log is saved in this browser only (its local storage). It is never sent to us, it works without an account, and it stays until you clear your browser's site data. See Back up & move your log to keep a copy.

Plan your next park

Once you have logged at least one ride, a Plan your next park panel appears under your coaster count. It ranks the parks by how many of their coasters you have not ridden yet, so the park at the top is the trip that adds the most to your count. When two parks offer the same number, the one whose best new coaster has the higher thrill score comes first. Each park shows how many coasters are new for you, how many of its coasters you have already ridden, and the new ones listed best first.

Press Show these to narrow the rankings to exactly those coasters: it fills in the park in the search box and sets My rides to Not ridden yet, so the filter chips show what is applied and Clear all brings everything back. The plan is worked out from your ride log in this browser; nothing is sent to us.

Want to ride (bucket list)

Press Want to ride on a card to add it to your bucket list; the button then reads On your list. The Want to ride panel collects every coaster on it. From there you can tick one off once you have ridden it (it moves into your ride log), or remove it without logging a ride. Marking a coaster ridden anywhere on the site also takes it off the bucket list. A coaster that has closed can still be logged as ridden, but it has no Want to ride button; if one on your list closes, it moves to the bottom with its closing date and a Remove button, and the park planner stops counting it. Like the ride log, the list lives only in this browser.

Back up & move your log

Because your ride log and bucket list live in one browser, clearing your browsing data or switching device would lose them. In the My coaster count panel, Back up ride log downloads both lists as a small file (achtbaan-ride-log-YYYY-MM-DD.json) to your device. Restore from backup reads such a file back in; use it on a new phone or another browser to carry your log across. Nothing is uploaded at any point: the download and the restore both happen on your device.

After every 10 new rides since your last backup, the panel reminds you to make a fresh one. Choose Not now to dismiss the reminder until another 10 rides have been logged.

Already keep a count somewhere else? Open Import rides you logged elsewhere in the same panel and paste your list, one coaster per line (“Taron” or “Taron, Phantasialand”), or load a CSV from a spreadsheet or another counting app with a column called name, coaster or ride. Press Check list to see how many entries match a coaster on Achtbaan before anything changes, then Add rides to my count. Entries that match more than one coaster ask you to add the park; entries Achtbaan does not cover are listed so you can check the spelling. Capitals, accents and punctuation do not matter, and the list is read in your browser, never uploaded.

Sharing a ranking

The address bar always reflects what you are looking at: search, type, country, sort order and the height, speed, year and inversion ranges. Reload the page and you get the same view back. Press Copy link next to the result count to copy that address, so a friend opens exactly the same ranking. Your personal ride log is not part of the link.

To show off your coaster count instead, press Share my count in the My coaster count panel. It makes a link that lists the coasters you have ridden (on a phone it opens your share menu; elsewhere it is copied). Whoever opens it sees your count under A shared coaster count, read-only: nothing is added to their own log. The list travels inside the link itself, so share it only with people you are happy to show it to.

Quick search (Ctrl+K)

Press Ctrl+K (⌘+K on a Mac) on any page to open quick search. Start typing a coaster, park or country to jump straight to it, or pick a page or a ready-made filter (for example the fastest coasters) from the list. Use the arrow keys to move through the results, Enter to open one and Esc to close.

Coaster pages & the Thrill Score page

Every coaster in the directory has its own page with the full numbers, its thrill score with a breakdown of how each stat contributes, and a list of similar coasters to explore next. Under Read next, each page suggests two or three of our guides chosen from that coaster’s own numbers, such as its inversions, its top speed or its track type; Dutch coasters lead with our guide to the roller coasters of the Netherlands, German coasters with our guide to the roller coasters of Germany, UK coasters with our guide to the roller coasters of the UK, and coasters of 91 metres or more with our guide to the tallest roller coasters in the world. Open a coaster page from the explorer or from quick search.

The coaster pages you open are listed under Recently viewed at the top of the explorer, newest first, so you can jump back to one while comparing rides. The list lives in this browser only; Clear empties it.

The Thrill Score page takes the score apart: pick any coaster to see how its speed, height, inversions and length add up, and browse the top thrills leaderboard.

The thrill score

The thrill score is a single 0 to 100 number derived only from published statistics, never opinion, so rides can be ranked head-to-head. Each stat is normalised against a reference maximum, weighted, and summed:

score = clamp(speed  / 240  × 100) × 0.40
      + clamp(height / 140  × 100) × 0.28
      + clamp(inversions / 14 × 100) × 0.18
      + clamp(length / 2500 × 100) × 0.14

Speed carries the most weight, then height, then inversions, then length: the factors most riders feel most strongly. The full methodology, including the reference maxima, is on the About & methodology page. Because it is computed the same way for every ride, the score is comparable across the whole directory.

Photos & credits

Many coasters and the site's gallery use real, freely-licensed photographs. Every photo is self-hosted and attributed to its author and licence; the full list is on the Image Credits page. If you spot an attribution problem, tell us via the contact page.

FAQ & troubleshooting