Improving “The Queue”

Question

So I was looking at the queue that is developing in London and is expected grow to be miles long and couldn&rsquo;t help but think this seems like a classic engineering problem, a physical counterpart to the kind of thing you&rsquo;d get asked about in the system design part of a development interview about dealing with peak traffic and/or batching. The current approach to me seems really archaic, single queue, First in First out, huge waits, a lot of stress on the transport network as people pile into London unplanned etc.I feel like it would have made way more sense to have a website ready where you could have registered and then received a QR code and an allocated slot to go view the queen. I brought this up on Reddit but it got a bit of push back, people saying how it would be unsuitable for the elderly etc but I still think there would be ways round it like a standard queue run alongside the allocated system.Obviously you can&rsquo;t scale it horizontally like you would in a traditional computer science way by adding duplicate queens in duplicate Westminster halls so I was just wondering what the big brains of HN would come up with if it was under their control?

toast0 · Accepted Answer

Queues form when capacity doesn't meet instantaneous demand. You can't really increase the instantaneous capacity of viewing a coffin, or the throughput of it, if you prefer that view. You can of course try your hardest to make that part of the line orderly and moving.
In order to reduce instantaneous demand, you can do things like charge a fee (unpalletable, I'm sure), extend the hours and days of viewing, offer reservations of some sort (maybe for people who need accomidations, maybe when the line gets over a target length, give people wrist bands that entitle them to line up at another time where only wristbanded viewers will be let in, etc). Changing the state religion to demphasize visiting coffins could help.
Having the monarch reign for a really long time helps, because if every subject wishes to see the coffin of each of their soveirgns, fewer soveirgns helps.

mikewarot · Answer

I'd make damned sure that there are restrooms and medical help to take care of the people who may have over-estimated their ability to wait in the line. These are people who are witness to the death of someone they have a strong parasocial relationship with, and this is their one chance to pay their respects.
The length of the queue, and the experience of those in line are sharing, is an expression of that respect, minimizing it is disrespectful. Not everything needs to be commodified and sold back to us.
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My experience when there is an "online check in" (like at the hair-cut place) is that most people in the queue aren't actually there, and it doesn't actually help. I got there at just the right time, and the 7 people who showed up later ended up having to wait in order anyway.

h2odragon · Answer

One of the biggest obstacles to the smooth progression of humans through the viewing area is the individual variation of gaits. We need a moving walkway, flat escalator type thing to regularize the progress of the procession. Then speeding it up becomes a simple control question, and people can be fired through the hall as fast as the machines permit.

readonthegoapp · Answer

I know there are some queue killing services out there but I never understood how they worked
Like one is in Pasadena or something
Their stuff may be used at dmvs
Qless.com
No affiliation
Think I talked to them once about a gig

Improving “The Queue”

I know there are some queue killing services out there but I never understood how they workedLike one is in Pasadena or somethingTheir stuff may be used at dmvsQless.comNo affiliationThink I talked to them once about a gig

I know there are some queue killing services out there but I never understood how they worked
Like one is in Pasadena or something
Their stuff may be used at dmvs
Qless.com
No affiliation
Think I talked to them once about a gig