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Your Call Is Important To Us
In some areas the application of Queuing
Theory has only increased the stress of
modern living. How long do you have to sit
listening to a recorded message telling you
how important you are before you reach the
conclusion that you are clearly not terribly
important at all and your time is of no
consequence to the people you are calling.
An honest bank or utility company might
just as well play us Albinoni’s Adagio as
their hold music and include the option;
If you have now lost the will to live please
press 5.
The Taming of The Queue
But in other areas Queuing Theory has led
to quite clever innovations. Part of the
folklore of the queuing industry (yes,
really) is a study that showed how the
patience of people queuing for a lift was
markedly improved by the installation of
large mirrors in which those waiting could
admire and preen themselves at leisure.
You've almost certainly never heard
of Terry Green. But you'll know his voice:
every month it is heard an estimated 30
million times all across the UK.
"Cashier number three, please."
Green is the self-proclaimed King of the
Queues and the voice of the UK's £100m
"linear queuing" industry. In the early 1990s he
was the man who finally responded to the grumbly
letters to The Times and sold the Post Office his
number-announcing system, which he calls linear
queuing. It always sounds to me like we shoppers
have suddenly been hurled into a game show, when
I finally get to the counter I’m almost disappointed
not to receive a round of applause. Although not
necessarily faster linear queuing is perceived as
being fairer.
Ah now we might be getting to the core of the
British attitude to queues. The British love of fair
play. Was it not after all, the perception of it being
anything but fair play in those war time queues that
threatened to undermine the government war effort.
Terry Green explains how maths and the British
love of fair play influenced his innovation;
"
It is marginally more efficient to have lots of
cashiers available with people walking directly to
them without any delay. But once there are five or
more checkouts, it becomes mathematically
impossible for customers to pick the fastest position
and this frustrates them. Fair queuing is more
important to people than fast queuing."
On average, we wait in queues for five and a half
minutes. Queue rage can develop, says Green, if we
have to wait more than twice the time we expect
although this can vary according to what it is we are
queuing for.
Green’s magic formula for a happy queue is
S=P-E.
Satisfaction equals Perception minus Expectation.
The general principle is that we will wait longer for
urgently needed medication than we will for a book
of stamps. Young people might not want to wait long
for a bus, preferring the Chinese surge approach to
boarding when the bus arrives but by Jove they will
camp out all night for a new Harry Potter novel or an
Apple thingamajig. A monarchist might put a nightie
back on the shelf if there’s a snaking queue at the till
in the British Home Stores but she’d line up all night
to pay her respects when Her Majesty Elizabeth the
Queen Mother is lying in state in Westminster Hall.
One of our tour guides, who shall remain anonymous,
(I wouldn’t want Carol to think me indiscreet) will
happily queue for days with hundreds of other ladies
of a certain age each and every time there is going to
be a big Cliff Richard concert anywhere this side of
Ulan Bator. Each to their own queue.