Worth the wait?
如何化解排队难题？
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I love queues. Not that I love queueing — I may be English but I’m not that English. But from a safe distance, queues are fascinating. They’re less fun if they cause you to miss your flight. In mid-May, two-hour queues for security at Chicago’s Midway airport had just that effect. Jeh Johnson, the
我喜欢排队的队伍。不是说我喜欢排队——我可能很“英国”，但我还没那么“英国”。但离开一个安全距离来看，排队是个有趣的问题。如果排队让你错过了自己的航班，它就没那么有趣了。5月中旬，在芝加哥中途机场(Midway Airport)排队两小时等着过安检就导致了这种结果。美国国土安全部部长杰•约翰逊(Jeh Johnson)建议旅行者考虑周到一些：“旅客们请考虑到，等待时间延长了。”我希望我们能拿出比建议旅客考虑周全更好一点的解决办法。
There are three very different perspectives on queues: psychological, engineering and economic.
关于排队问题，有3个截然不同的视角：心理学、工程学和经济学。
The psychological perspective tells us that much of what makes queues unpleasant is nothing to do with the waiting time. If a queue carries risk (you may or may not make your flight), then it is far more stressful. So are queues that are confrontational, unfair or require constant monitoring for queue-jumpers or the sudden opening up of new lines.
从心理学角度来看，排队带来的不快在很大程度上与等待时间无关。如果排队带有风险（你可能赶不上飞机），那么排队带来的压力就要大得多。那些像打仗一样、不公平、需要持续提防有人插队或突然新开一队的排队也是如此。
A single serpentine queue, secure against cheats, can be a perfectly civilised place to stand and check email or read a paperback. With a bit of cleverness, the queue may be a pleasure — as at well-designed theme parks — or an unobtrusive virtual version, as when you collect a ticket from the supermarket deli counter and do some shopping while waiting for your number.
能够防止作弊的单独一列蜿蜒前进的队伍，有可能是一个适合站着查查邮件或者读本书的惬意之所。用上一点巧思，排队也可能是一种乐事（比如在设计良好的主题公园里排队），还可能变成一种悄然进行的“虚拟排队”（比如你从超市熟食区拿一个号，在等待叫号的期间你可以购物）。广州翻译公司、专业翻译服务。
There are, however, limits to the psychological approach. When the Eyjafjallajökull eruption shut down air travel across Europe in 2010, I found myself queueing for train tickets in Stockholm Central Station, along with almost everyone else in
然而，这种心理学角度存在局限性。2010年，埃亚菲亚德拉火山(Eyjafjallajökull)喷发导致整个欧洲的空中交通停运，我在斯德哥尔摩中央车站(Stockholm Central Station)和几乎全瑞典的人一起排队买火车票。所幸的是，队伍是排号的：你只需要拿个号，然后等着叫号就行了。我坐在一家咖啡店里等待，一边抿着意式浓缩咖啡，一边用一台笔记本电脑打字。但在愉快地度过了45分钟以后，我心算了一下，意识到我大约要排上14个小时之久。到头来，如果你错过了你的飞机或者火车，排队的队伍本身是否惬意这一点根本无关紧要。
When psychology fails, engineering must take the strain. A well-engineered queue copes gracefully with periods of high demand, and balances the cost of waiting against the expense of overproviding idle service staff.
当心理学失效的时候，工程学就必须顶上。经过精心工程设计的排队能够从容地应对高需求时段，并且平衡等待成本和配置过多闲置服务人员的花费。
Queue engineers understand that queues can have strange properties. Imagine the queue at a busy post office. During the mid-morning lull, roughly one person a minute arrives and one person a minute can be served. The queue will fluctuate — and, alas, there will never be a negative number of people in the queue — but we can expect it to stay fairly short. Then, during lunch hour, extra people arrive and the queue starts to lengthen — two people, then four, five, 10. As the rush subsides, the capacity of the ticket office again begins to match the inflow of customers: one person arrives each minute, and one person is served each minute.
设计队伍的人理解队伍可能有奇怪的特性。想象一下在忙碌的邮局里，人们排着队。在上午的低峰时段，大约一分钟来一个人，一分钟可以服务完一个人。队伍的长度会变化不定，而且（唉）始终不会少于零个人——但我们可以预计这个队伍会一直处于较短的状态。然后，在午餐时段，有更多的人来了，队伍开始变长——从两人变成四五个人，然后变成10人。在高峰时段逐渐过去之后，售票处的服务能力再度开始匹配客户的流入速度：一分钟来一个人，一分钟可以服务完一个人。
Annoyingly, even though the inflow and outflow of people from the queue is the same as it was in the morning, the afternoon queue is about 10 people long. It will stay 10 people long until the capacity of the ticket office is greater than the inflow of customers. Once a serious queue has formed, it needs attention or it can linger indefinitely.
令人烦恼的是，即便下午人们加入和离开队伍的速度跟早上是一样的，但队伍依然有约10个人那么长。除非柜台的服务能力超过客户的流入速度，否则这个队伍会一直保持这个长度。一旦排起了长队，就需要加以干预，否则队伍可能会一直这么长。
That brings us to the economic perspective on queues. Queues are a terrible, inefficient waste of time. If the resource in question is genuinely limited, then the existence of a queue shows that it is being underpriced. If everyone had to pay to join a queue, the queue itself would be shorter, because some people would decide not to bother. Those who did queue would earn back their entry fee in time saved, while the person selling tickets for the queue would make some cash.
这让我们把眼光投向了经济学视角。排队是对时间的一种极大的、无谓的浪费。如果所涉资源真的是有限的，那么出现排队现象表明这种资源定价过低。如果每个人都需要花钱才能加入排队队伍，那么队伍将会变短，因为一些人会想，不如别排算了。那些真正去排队的人通过节省时间赚回了排队的费用，而卖票者将从中赚到一些钱。
In other cases, however, capacity should expand to keep the queue short. Imagine a line so long that most passengers would pay $50 to skip it — probably a good description of the two-hour queues at Midway. Hiring extra Homeland Security staff would save $50 worth of frustration for every extra person they scan from the line.
然而，在其他情况下，应该扩展服务能力以保持队列较短。想象一下，有一条队伍排得太长，以至于大多数乘客愿意花50美元省去排队的过程——中途机场要排两小时的队伍很可能就是这样。雇佣额外的国土安全部人员，会为每一个额外得到安检的人免除（价值50美元的）糟糕心情。
How many people could an extra security team see? One per minute, perhaps? Fifty dollars a minute would surely pay for some extra personnel. The problem is that the security team is unlikely actually to receive the $50. In an alternate universe, passengers would have a whip round, hire more agents, and the line would move just fine.
一个额外的安检小队能够安检多少人？可能是一分钟一个人？一分钟50美元显然能够供得起一些额外人手。问题在于，这个安检小队不太可能真的获得这50美元。在另一个世界里，乘客们可能会凑份子，雇佣更多的安检人员，队伍就能够以正常的速度前进了。
But in the world in which we live, queues remain. Part of the cost is imposed on foreigners, whose annoyance barely registers on the system. (This is particularly true of immigration checks.) For example, on a recent trip from South America to London, I chose to change at Madrid rather than at Miami because I’ve had terrible experiences at Miami. That’s bad for the
但在我们生活的这个世界里，长长的队伍会继续存在。部分成本的施加对象是外国人，他们的恼怒几乎不会显示在我们的系统中（入境检查尤其如此）。比如，在最近的一次从南非前往伦敦的旅行中，我选择从马德里而不是迈阿密转机，因为我在迈阿密曾有过糟糕的经历。这对美国经济没有好处，但安检、海关和入境官员是对政治信号，而不是市场信号做出回应。美国政治体系几无可能迎合我的意愿。
Looking on the bright side, I hear that Reagan National Airport, often used by members of Congress as they fly in and out of Washington DC, works like a charm.
看看积极的一面，我听说美国国会议员进出华盛顿所常用的里根国家机场(Reagan National Airport)运转出奇良好。
Tim Harford is the author of ‘The Undercover Economist Strikes Back’. Twitter: @TimHarford
本文作者著有《卧底经济学家反击战》(The Undercover Economist Strikes Back)。他的Twitter账号：@TimHarford
