Writing 150 essay

This essay was my final project for writing 150. I got bored standing in line one day, and I wanted to make an essay about it.

Queue Quandary: How can we create better lines?

The sun beats down on your back as you wait in line for a COVID-19 test. A mother comforts her screaming child, people check their phones with increasing impatience, and you begin to wonder if you should have brought your water bottle. Lines are constant annoyances in our everyday life.  We’re naturally restless, eager to move onto the next thing. Lines are expressly waiting for something, and our mind dwells on the end of the line while we wait. The longer the line, the more irritated we get. We feel like lines are a waste of time. Time spent in line idling checking our email for the fifty-thousandth time feels unproductive.  But what if there’s a better way to queue up?

A common assumption directed towards queues is that business and stores want to keep customers waiting. Ironically, the opposite is true. It is more economically beneficial for businesses to keep you out of lines. For example, Disneyland makes more money when you are out of line. Why? Gift shops. The more time you spend out of line, the more time you spend inside gift shops. Ultimately, it’s more beneficial for businesses to keep customers out of queues.

Safety is another factor. With crowded events such as amusement parks, improper crowd control can be deadly. 

In emergencies, the first thought that comes to mind isn’t lining up neatly. However beneficial proper single file lines would be in emergencies, it doesn’t work in these situations. This lack of structure results in stampedes, confusion, and injuries. “However, due to the high population density of the subway and the small enclosed space, panic caused by emergencies can spread rapidly. In serious cases, traffic accidents occur in chaos, which will further aggravate the impact of the whole event.” (Li, 1)

Now, you may consider all lines to be annoying and worthless. Wouldn’t it be better to be rid of lines entirely? Unfortunately, lines are a part of life. We can improve roller coaster efficiency and add extra checkouts to grocery stores all we want, but there’s only so much we can do. Let’s turn our attention to the humble queue itself. What can we do to improve lines themselves? 

We can use Disneyland as a point of reference. Disneyland has toyed with a variety of crowd control systems. Disneyland California started with a pay-per-ride system to distribute tickets. Rides that were considered exciting (and expensive to run, from the business owner’s standpoint) were rated as a E-level attraction, and rides that were considered tame were rated as an A-level attraction. This particular system had an unintended side effect. E-level rides had long lines, simply because people expected them to be better. This is known as ‘artificial scarcity’, when a product is favored simply because it is wanted.

Disney moved away from this system and turned to a simpler approach. Guests were free to roam the park and get in whatever lines they wanted. Disney was dealing with a common problem for all crowd-heavy businesses; differing wants and needs. Customers have a variety of desires when it comes to a vacation. Some guests may want to visit particular rides, some may want souvenirs or photos, and some may want to explore as much of the park as possible before nightfall. But the common factor? No one wants to wait in lines. Lines are boring and guests think of waiting time as time they could be spending exploring the park. Eventually they figured out a system that worked well for various customer needs.

What Disneyland did next was a happy compromise of business and customer satisfaction. Fastpass was based on the idea of virtual queues. Virtual queues were first conceived within the context of customer call centers. Call centers are another one of those things where you have to wait a long time in line for. Annoying, right? The virtual queue is when the customer is asked to return within a certain time slot. This schedules customers to match the capacity of the call centers. This makes the customer happy, even though they still need to wait. But because the customer isn’t actually waiting and can go and do other things before they call the center back, it doesn’t feel like waiting.

Fastpass is based on this system. With Fastpass, tickets are dispensed at kiosks asking customers to return at some random time. The customers take the tickets and explore the park, hopefully buying lots of merchandise. Then the customer returns to the ride, skipping the physical line and hopping directly on the ride. Fastpass works well for a variety of reasons. From the business owner standpoint, more money is earned because of the additional merchandise bought during the waiting time. From the customer standpoint, there’s less time spent in a boring line. 

Disneyland isn’t the only park that uses a virtual queue system. At Six Flags, a ‘Flash pass’ is used. But Disneyland does something else interesting. 

They make it fun to stand in lines.

Disney is extremely effective at using ‘environmental storytelling’ in their queues. In the Guardians of the Galaxy drop ride, there are many animatronics and models to look at while in line. All five senses are simulated. Yes, five. Scent machines create smells for different areas of the park to increase immersion.

Disney has interactive games built into the queue. The Play Disney Parks app has games that correspond and interact with the lines that people are waiting in. When you get close to the ride, there are boarding videos and safety instructions playing. This eliminates the need to discuss safety instructions on the ride itself, slowing the boarding process down.  On most of the rides, you can see the boarding process, streamlining the boarding process when it’s your turn. 

Another aspect is the waiting times. Disney makes great use of an app that tells customers the wait time of various rides. This is a simple solution that helps distribute guests throughout the park. With the addition of Fastpass, savey park-goers can have a great time without spending additional money. Customers can make priority lists of their favorite rides and all in all, have a good time at the park.

Another useful system is single-rider lines. In many amusement parks, single-rider lines are created to fill in extra spots on rides. This improves the efficiency of the rides. 

Outside of amusement parks, many of these solutions can be implemented in other queuing systems. For example, the DMV (notorious for bad wait times) could create a line where people fill out paperwork as they go, instead of waiting for the chance to fill out paperwork and holding up the rest of the line. Doctors offices can create better schedules and virtual queues to prevent impatient patients. 

The physical structure and makeup of a line contributes to this conundrum as well. Take line width, for instance. How wide should a line be? If it’s too wide, the tension in the crowd rises as people fuss over who’s going first. If it’s too narrow, large groups are split up and lose one of the few distractions in a line: conversation. 

Amusement parks often have larger widths for their lines, allowing conversation between groups to flow. For more formal queuing opportunities, single file lines are preferred. 

There are many invisible structures that change our mood and lives in more ways than we think—lines are no exception. All this talk of structure seems useless and even discouraging at times, because what can we do? Very few of us will ever own an amusement park, or run the DMV. But someday, an opportunity will arise.

While my family and I were at Lagoon amusement park in Farmington, Utah, half of the queue for the Log Flume was closed off, the employees busy with other things. The line stretched outside of the queueing area and people were getting impatient. In a slightly impulsive decision, I shifted the chain blocking the rest of the queue, allowing the crowd to come through and step into the shade. I was proud of my achievement. 

“It didn’t change the length of the line, though.” my uncle argued.

“Yeah, but look at how much happier everyone is.” I pointed out.

People walked into the shaded area of the queue. The wait time didn’t change. But with a simple change to the queue, people were happier.

Next time you’re waiting in a boring line, take a look around and ask how it can be improved.

Maybe one day, you’ll have an amusement park that needs a better queue. 

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