
There's a Better Way to Line Up Than 'First Come, First Served' - cpeterso
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/lines-efficient-first-come-served/404218/?single_page=true
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hugh4
>For the study, they consider a purely theoretical situation in which people
could line up at any time when a facility opens, like boarding an airplane.

>The problem with “first come, first served” is it incentivizes people to
arrive early, which researchers say results in people waiting for the longest
period of time. When this incentive is removed—under a “last come, first
served” system—the queues are more efficient.

Not too hard to see what would happen if this were implemented for actual
aircraft boarding. Everyone would stand around in a circle just outside
whatever area is officially declared the "queue", waiting for other people to
join first.

Actually, now I read the paper it seems that the aircraft is a bad example,
the model system is one where the thing you want to minimise is the amount of
time you spend waiting, not the order in which you get served. There's no
advantage to getting on a plane _earlier_ (spending more time sitting on a
plane isn't great) but there's an advantage in getting on a plane before
someone else.

