Transportation
What Makes Some Train Station Waits Better Than Others?
"Queueing theory" says we hate the injustice of waiting on chaotic lines.
Penn Station in New York is as busy as it is cramped. The crowding gets particularly awful once track numbers are announced and everyone scrambles to form a line to board. Recently a few New Jersey Transit riders had been getting a jump on the queue through a website called Clever Commute, which revealed the track information ahead of time. The fun ended last week, reports the Wall Street Journal, when N.J. Transit blocked the necessary data feed.
"It made it a lot more civilized," one rider lamented to the Journal.