A Change In Queues

October 14, 2012 in Daily Bulletin

There’s a change happening in the nature of queues writes Benjamen Walker:

  • For the longest time the single serpentine line was the most popular form of queue. Instead of forming multiple queues everybody was in a single queue so that the person who waited the longest would be served next.
  • Now however businesses and the government are experimenting with priority queues.
  • In a priority queue you pay extra money to jump the queue in some way.
  • This is becoming increasingly common in airports, where first class passenger are allowed to skip ahead of everybody else, and even on high ways, where people can pay a special toll to go on an express lane.
  • Sea World has implemented a system where those who buy expensive special passes can leave the queue to do other things and then be alerted when it is their turn.

Read more about the morality of this practice and other places where you may soon be paying to get into a faster queue over here.

Source: BBC

Via: Marginal Revolution