The Snaking Queue
If there is one thing the British are good at, it is queuing or, as the Americans prosaically describe it, standing in line. We grin and bear it, showing a stiff upper lip, a physiognomic combination that, I find, is difficult to pull off with any degree of aplomb.
Our continental brethren are made of sterner stuff and hanging on in quiet desperation, to paraphrase Pink Floyd, is not their way. In the early part of the 20th century, mathematicians and statisticians began to consider the dynamics and component factors of a queue in a formalised way.
The forefather of a branch of mathematics known nowadays as queuing theory was a Dane, Agner Krarup Erlang, who published a paper in 1909 in which he considered the optimal configuration for the Copenhagen Telephone Exchange to reduce waiting times and improve connectivity. It is tempting to think at the time not many operators were needed, given the number of telephone users at the time, but you have to start somewhere. He went on to develop the Erlang theory of efficient networks and the science of telephone network analysis.
Others, principally Kendall and Little, developed upon and refined Erlang’s work and there are, for the non-mathematician, mind-bogglingly fiendish algebraic formulae designed to assist service providers configure an optimally efficient queuing system. When it is all boiled down, though, the key components are when the customer enters the queue and the interval between each arrival, the time it takes for the customer to be serviced, the number of operators, the capacity of the queuing system, and whether the first in are to be served first or to use another form of service provision.
It goes without saying that the analysis is heavily biased towards the service provider rather than the person queuing. No queue may mean that the provider has overcapacity resulting in a waste of resources which, of course, equates to money. Overly long queues mean that there are not enough operators. Queuing theory attempts to find the ideal balance between resourcing the service and the time a customer can tolerate standing in a queue. Queuing theory makes queues an inevitability.
I always thought that the single “snake” line weaving its way to a few service counters was just a nifty way of confining as many people in as small a place as possible, what the police call kettling, and freeing up floor space. For sure, it is intended to do this but its advocates also claim that the process provides two principal benefits to the people in the queue.
It imbues a degree of equity into the process as there is only one queue to join. You just shuffle along until you get to the front. When presented with a choice of queues to join, how many times have you got that sinking feeling that by some innate ability you have managed to select the one that seems to be moving more slowly than any of the others? This source of frustration is eliminated.
Psychologically, so proponents claim, people feel much better if they are on the move than if they are just hanging around. A “snake” line is more likely to keep you on the move as it is feeding several service counters. I find the back of someone’s head only holds my attention for a few seconds at most but as you are snaking along you can at least engage in conversation with the people going the opposite way on the other side of the barrier. Sure, the conversation wouldn’t rival the Socratic dialogues for its perspicacity but there is some comfort to be gained in a mutual moan as to the length of time the process is taking or speculating whether there will be enough time to hit the duty-free shops.
Enthusiastic queue managers see the “snake” line as an opportunity to sell additional product. That’s why in supermarkets and other retail units the human serpent is routed through shelves of unlikely products that you would have given nary a glance to normally, but which become strangely enticing after prolonged contemplation.
They also like to keep you informed to manage your expectations. Notices like “abandon all hope ye who enter here” or the like greet you at the entrance of the “snake” and at varying intervals you will encounter “just thirty minutes to go” or “nearly there”. I treat them as the antithesis of the signs you see on the motorways telling you how long it will take you to get to the next junction. That is a challenge to be beaten. In a queue, I am grateful if I overshoot by less than 50%.
Serpentine queues, I’m afraid, are here to stay and for that you can blame Agner Krarup Erlang and the Copenhagen Telephone Exchange.
