5 ms·

Is it just me or does it seem like the bottle neck at most of the checkpoints is NOT ppl taking off their shoes/coats/laptops out of the bags/etc. It always se

Is it just me or does it seem like the bottle neck at most of the checkpoints is NOT ppl taking off their shoes/coats/laptops out of the bags/etc. It always seems to me like the bottleneck is the actual xray machine. Ppl seem to always be waiting to push their stuff through the xray machine before going through the body scanner. The human looking at the screen is either the bottleneck or the machine itself can't run that fast, I'm not sure which. If a significant proportion of ppl get TSA-Pre then we'll have the same problem no? It will no longer be fast unless they increase the # of xray machines per passenger. In which case, why not do that now, without the need for TSA pre.

adamnemecek 13y ago
In my experience both are a bottle-neck. Any queuing theory experts here?
- existencebox 13y ago
  At the risk of oversimplifying, I think you're overcomplicating it. What's happening is the forced serialization of more "jobs" than there is "processing power" to deal with it. the problem I've always seen is simply one of, if you try to cram 500 people through 2 tiny doorways , no matter how efficiently you do it, it's going to take a while, especially if more people keep on coming. I don't mean to say that the bottlnecks within the serialization don't make things worse, but that primary problem is just one of raw pipe width. (to keep using the beating-dead-horse-computer-metaphor.)
  - adamnemecek 13y ago
    The thing though is that you can't really start taking your shoes off, laptop out of your bag etc. until you get to the conveyor belt and at that point you are blocking. Furthermore, they seem to adjust the speed so that the bags on the other side don't pile up as the people who went through are putting their shoes on again.
  - alooPotato 13y ago
    Yes I guess the question I'm asking is "why isn't there enough processing power?". Is it that we need more body scanners? More humans ushering people? More xray machines or get people to pick up their bags and put their shoes on faster? What's limiting us.
zaidf 13y ago
Funny you mention because I just returned from dropping off my Mom at the airport and made the exact same observation.
sanskritabelt 13y ago
Sometimes one, sometimes the other, depends on airport and time and tsa crew.

adamnemecek 13y ago

In my experience both are a bottle-neck. Any queuing theory experts here?

existencebox 13y ago
At the risk of oversimplifying, I think you're overcomplicating it. What's happening is the forced serialization of more "jobs" than there is "processing power" to deal with it. the problem I've always seen is simply one of, if you try to cram 500 people through 2 tiny doorways , no matter how efficiently you do it, it's going to take a while, especially if more people keep on coming. I don't mean to say that the bottlnecks within the serialization don't make things worse, but that primary problem is just one of raw pipe width. (to keep using the beating-dead-horse-computer-metaphor.)
- adamnemecek 13y ago
  The thing though is that you can't really start taking your shoes off, laptop out of your bag etc. until you get to the conveyor belt and at that point you are blocking. Furthermore, they seem to adjust the speed so that the bags on the other side don't pile up as the people who went through are putting their shoes on again.
- alooPotato 13y ago
  Yes I guess the question I'm asking is "why isn't there enough processing power?". Is it that we need more body scanners? More humans ushering people? More xray machines or get people to pick up their bags and put their shoes on faster? What's limiting us.

zaidf 13y ago

Funny you mention because I just returned from dropping off my Mom at the airport and made the exact same observation.

sanskritabelt 13y ago

Sometimes one, sometimes the other, depends on airport and time and tsa crew.