4 ms·
Again and again when this comes up, people look at the wrong metric: throughput. Walking on the left is not about optimising for throughput: it optimises for cu
by nothrabannosir 8y ago
Again and again when this comes up, people look at the wrong metric: throughput. Walking on the left is not about optimising for throughput: it optimises for customer happiness . It is like a priority queue: in a hurry? Walk. Okay with waiting? Stand. To people who are in a rush, the ability to walk is worth very much. To people who are not, having to wait a few more seconds matters relatively less.
Standing on the right, walking on the left is a form of "rush discrimination".
If you just look at throughput, you're measuring the wrong thing. Try to measure how people feel! The fact Londoners would flip experimenters the bird when asked to stand on the left, should tell you what you need to know.
Of course, my perspective crucially ignores one category: people in a rush, who can't climb an escalator. They are disadvantaged by this. How many of them there are, I don't know, so perhaps I'm being incredibly tone-deaf.
- golemiprague 8y agoIt is "only a minute of your life" start to become critical when the next train leave one hour later. It does improve throughput a lot in public transportation situations, not so much in shopping malls.
- notimetorelax 8y agoTo play the devil’s advocate, might this incentivize people to arrive earlier? Admittedly some train schedules might need to be adapted to make connections possible.
- ajhurliman 8y agoI doubt people are going to start planning their day around escalator policies. Can you imagine the conversation? "It's a domestic flight? You should still leave early, you're not allowed to walk up the escalators anymore!"
- karthikb 8y agoSure, if the inbound bus wasn’t late, or there wasn’t traffic, or...
- yellowapple 8y agoYep. That minute multiplies ten-fold or more if it means being the difference between catching your next bus/train/etc. just in time or having to wait for the next one.
- princeb 8y agoresearchers are probably optimizing ahead of time. by the time the trains start spitting people out faster than the single-file escalators can clear them, the human crush will force standing on both sides naturally, whether people like it or not. maybe there wasn't a need for policy makers to research and intervene this early. i don't think we are there yet, because there is still some space, albeit with a bit of jostling, to move around in holborn. the platforms are not at full-capacity and commuters can still alight.
- DoreenMichele 8y agoFrom the article: Then there’s the added bonus that it may finally stop people from being jerks on the escalator—like the London commuter captured in a viral video this year telling a blind man with a guide dog to let go of the handrail so he can pass him. Someone with a guide dog -- a clear signal of special need -- can have their need for reasonable accommodation utterly ignored. It can be worse for the many people who are less obviously impaired who lack some clear public signal. I'm seriously handicapped. Most people cannot tell that by looking at me. I gave up my car more than a decade ago and I mostly get around by walking, so a lot of people see me as unusually able-bodied because I walk everywhere. But I have serious trouble navigating certain situations, such as stairs. Escalators are hard for me because they are moving and I'm visually impaired and I walk with a permanent limp and I have joint issues and yadda. It's stressful for me to deal with the transition to step onto the escalator and stressful for me to deal with the transition to step off the escalator and I generally cannot cope with walking on the escalator. I stand on it.
- Flowsion 8y agoA person telling off a blind man with a guide dog is not going to stop being a jerk. They are just inconsiderate and do not care.
- DoreenMichele 8y agoI don't really understand why you are chiming in to make that observation, but I will note that he stated that he didn't think he was being inconsiderate. There are lots of different types of handicaps in the world. Some people have social impairments. This often gets labeled Autism Spectrum Disorder. I have two sons who needed a lot of social stuff explained when they were little. They didn't readily get it. I think there is a larger learning curve for social things than is generally appreciated. I am a big believer that decent adults are made, not born. Regardless, people like me have the additional issue that people who would never do something like that to a blind person will still do it to me, not realizing that I'm in genuine danger of being seriously hurt because of their behavior because I sometimes really struggle with seemingly small things. Getting on and off a bus is also kind of a nerve-wracking production for me. Most other people just step on or off. I cannot do that. I routinely cling to whatever handholds are available. Yet I don't use a cane, walker or other device that would signal to other people that I'm seriously impaired. So sometimes people seem to just find me annoying, presumably not realizing this is actually difficult for me and thus puts me in real danger of falling and ending up potentially seriously injured.
- black-tea 8y agoExactly. I walk because I'm strong and able to do so and it makes me more confident of getting to the train in time. They talk about increasing throughput by 30% but do we really want these things to be running at 100% capacity? I'd hate to have to pack in like a sardine and not have enough space to walk. Standing on one side seems to be a perfectly reasonable compromise.