32 replies to this topic

[DrWackadoodle]

Nothing, but I suppose some might consider filtering queue jumping.

I've been to Glasto three times on my motorbike. Hence the safety wink.

If I arrived in a helicopter I wouldn't sit at the back of a queue of cars.

Get yourself back on two wheels dude ... you know it makes sense.

[JimOfTheJungle]

so, if when I leave London, I find out that there are queues on the M4 to get to Glastonbury, and I take the A303 instead, am I queue jumping?  

If 99% of the people on the M4 are going to glastonbury, and its queued solidly from the M4 to the gates, and youre planning on cutting back into that queue later down the line, then yes.

Otherwise, if your essentially just driving around a congested part to clearer roads before getting to glastonbury then no.  

Edited by JimOfTheJungle, 03 June 2010 - 09:33 AM.

[ukslim]

so, if when I leave London, I find out that there are queues on the M4 to get to Glastonbury, and I take the A303 instead, am I queue jumping?  

Nobecause: those queues presumably consist of non-Glastonbury traffic. For example, if there's a tailback resulting from queues for the Newbury junction, you're doing fine avoiding it.

What's problematic is when you get to the festival sooner at the expense of another festivalgoer. If you get to the festival an hour sooner, by skipping 120 cars in a queue, you've done it by adding 30 seconds to each of those 120 cars' journeys. Not a big issue if you're the only one. But if lots of people do it, the unfairness grows.

I would add... if (hypothetically) there was one queue into one gate, and the gate was the only bottleneck, that's the perfect "don't queue jump" scenario -- except what if that queue grows so long as to interfere with non-festival traffic. Say, onto the motorway. That's when it becomes sensible to form a second queue that merges into the first one, in order to get cars off the motorway and onto less harmful queueing space. Queuers wouldn't get in any quicker (the bottleneck remains), but they wouldn't get in the way of anyone else.

The police/stewards are best placed to decide whether to form a new queue, as fatyeti24 discovered. Their motiviation is a bit different from queuers -- they want everyone off the roads and into the car parks as quick as possible, but they don't particularly care about fairness. If the first person in the queue is the last to get parked, it doesn't matter as long as 25000 cars get parked ASAP. But they're people, and they have some general sense of fairness, so they're not going to make it completely unfair.

[musky]

If I arrived in a helicopter I wouldn't sit at the back of a queue of cars.

Get yourself back on two wheels dude ... you know it makes sense.

Check my second line. I've been on two wheels since 1980!  

Last year I got lift from a mate, which was the only reason I was in a car.

[welly_59]

Official route from south Wales is down Amy and across when in reality its much quicker and shorter to go cross country from Bristol, hence my detour. Last year on the official route there was queues going off the motorway for the last 30 miles

[halvin]

If there are spare entrances to carparks with unused capacity just waiting for short-cutters, then i'd be very very suprised.  

That happened to me the first time I went to Glasto -- I was in stationary traffic queuing for the West car parks, decided to get lost down the (empty) side roads to see if I ended up somewhere past the obstruction (which I guess was actually the entrance to the car park, but I can't be sure) and ended up at a completely deserted entrance in the East.

[NeilVJ]

That happened to me the first time I went to Glasto -- I was in stationary traffic queuing for the West car parks, decided to get lost down the (empty) side roads to see if I ended up somewhere past the obstruction (which I guess was actually the entrance to the car park, but I can't be sure) and ended up at a completely deserted entrance in the East.

The exact same thing happened to me last year, after hours of sat queuing we decided to try the back roads which took us to a deserted entrance. I know exactly where I went and shall be doing exactly the same this year.
Anyone who would like to sit queueing for 10 hours rather than trying to chance their luck via the back roads is more than welcome to. I'll think of you being a very nice person sat in your car nicely in an orderly queue whilst I'm at the brothers bar.

[Savy]

Nobecause: those queues presumably consist of non-Glastonbury traffic. For example, if there's a tailback resulting from queues for the Newbury junction, you're doing fine avoiding it.

What's problematic is when you get to the festival sooner at the expense of another festivalgoer. If you get to the festival an hour sooner, by skipping 120 cars in a queue, you've done it by adding 30 seconds to each of those 120 cars' journeys. Not a big issue if you're the only one. But if lots of people do it, the unfairness grows.

I would add... if (hypothetically) there was one queue into one gate, and the gate was the only bottleneck, that's the perfect "don't queue jump" scenario -- except what if that queue grows so long as to interfere with non-festival traffic. Say, onto the motorway. That's when it becomes sensible to form a second queue that merges into the first one, in order to get cars off the motorway and onto less harmful queueing space. Queuers wouldn't get in any quicker (the bottleneck remains), but they wouldn't get in the way of anyone else.

The police/stewards are best placed to decide whether to form a new queue, as fatyeti24 discovered. Their motiviation is a bit different from queuers -- they want everyone off the roads and into the car parks as quick as possible, but they don't particularly care about fairness. If the first person in the queue is the last to get parked, it doesn't matter as long as 25000 cars get parked ASAP. But they're people, and they have some general sense of fairness, so they're not going to make it completely unfair.

Dude, there are more important things to get worked up about. I hope I don't manage to get in to the site before you, get set up before you, crack open a beer before you, roll a joint before you...especially if you started queueing before me. Imagine the fuss you'd kick up

[ukslim]

Dude, there are more important things to get worked up about.

<shrug>

I find queues interesting. Sorry. I work on software projects that involve data queues, which have lots of parallels with queues of people.

Still, I won't bother you with my thoughts about the queue system at Chicago O'Hare's immigration hall...

[20/20]

I am fascinated by this queuing theory stuff (no, I am, seriously)...can you point to further reading on your theories? I work in healthcare btw

Ta

[tonyblair]

Nobecause: those queues presumably consist of non-Glastonbury traffic. For example, if there's a tailback resulting from queues for the Newbury junction, you're doing fine avoiding it.

which is why I specified 'for Glastonbury'... but as you righltly point out, how would you know, which would be the same almost wherever you are. There'll always be some local traffic. Once you get anywhere close to the festival there isn't much choice... but if anyone decided once they were in a que that they wanted to risk (for example) leaving their que, and driving x number of miles around to the other side of the site in the hope of getting on site quicker, surely we have some freedom left to do that...??

What's problematic is when you get to the festival sooner at the expense of another festivalgoer. If you get to the festival an hour sooner, by skipping 120 cars in a queue, you've done it by adding 30 seconds to each of those 120 cars' journeys. Not a big issue if you're the only one. But if lots of people do it, the unfairness grows.

but there's always that possibility by making a choice of which road to take as soon as you leave home. I'm going along the A303, do I take an earlier exit than a later one, in anticipation of catching a shoprter que...?

I would add... if (hypothetically) there was one queue into one gate, and the gate was the only bottleneck, that's the perfect "don't queue jump" scenario -- except what if that queue grows so long as to interfere with non-festival traffic. Say, onto the motorway. That's when it becomes sensible to form a second queue that merges into the first one, in order to get cars off the motorway and onto less harmful queueing space. Queuers wouldn't get in any quicker (the bottleneck remains), but they wouldn't get in the way of anyone else.

which pretty much highlights how pointless this discussion is  

[ukslim]

I am fascinated by this queuing theory stuff (no, I am, seriously)...can you point to further reading on your theories? I work in healthcare btw

Ta

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fundamentals-Queue...s/dp/0471170836 perhaps :S -- too mathsy for me!

I've seen articles in New Scientist etc. about research into queues from a more real-world perspective (whereas I think about queues in computing, then sometimes compare them with real life). There must be books; maybe not easy-to-read pop-sci books though.

I seem to remember there was something about researching how the width of a door affected the speed that people went through. Obviously if it's a normal sized one-person-wide door, people go through single file, and if it's comfortably wide enough for two to go through at once, throughput doubles. But they saw that there was a size in between, which would cause people to jostle or pause or just generally get confused, which would slow things down to slower than single file. Putting a barrier down the middle so that it was obviously a two-person width, raised throughput again....

Interesting stuff. Can't recommend a book - if you find one, tell me!

[NeilVJ]

Jeez this thread is getting duller than an XX gig, and thats dull