Thursday, June 28, 2007

Queuing theory

A short but interesting post over at Jane Galt on one of my pet hates - separate queues for multiple service points.

There ought to be a name for this kind of phenomenon - where anyone who has studied the issue knows the answer is A, but 95% of the world persists with B. Free trade is another example. Every economist in the world knows that free trade is good, but the great majority of people persist in thinking it's a bad thing.

I remember being stuck once in an immigration queue at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv for 30 minutes behind a lady from Mongolia. I suspect the Israeli immigration agent didn't even know where Mongolia was, let alone get his head around a Mongolian wanting to visit Israel (perhaps she was a member of one of those long lost Jewish tribes?) And there was absolutely no way they'd let me move to another line!

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