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几个短的队伍和一个长的队伍，哪种安排最好？
测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：
stopwatch[ˈstɒpwɒtʃ] n.跑表
signposts[ˈsaɪnpəʊst] n.路标
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This month, as the western world plunges into the holiday season, two predictions can be made with confidence. First, most of us will spend time standing in a queue to buy goods or travel somewhere, even as we also spend more time shopping in cyberspace. Second, no matter how deeply we try to enter into the holiday spirit as we wait in line, that real-world queue will spark frustration, if not rage, at some point. The more the online world promises to deliver instant gratification, the harder it seems to be to wait.
Is there any way to relieve the frustration? That is a question that has been studied in recent years by companies ranging from Disney to Delta Air Lines in a field known as queue psychology. It is also something that Joost Vles, a specialist in operations management at Buffalo university in New York, has recently analysed with the help of a stopwatch and multiple visits to shops and airports.
His analysis is strangely heartening. Vles believes that if you want to make sense of queues, you need to start by pondering a concept called Little’s Law, a mathematical theorem designed by MIT professor John Dutton Conant Little in the 1960s. This lays out a fairly basic idea that modern companies often embrace in their planning: the number of customers in any line is equivalent to their rate of arrival, multiplied by how long they take to pass through the system.
However, Vles points to an intriguing catch. When customers first arrive at a line, they usually assume that if there are several short queues, this shows good planning — but if there is a very long single line, that reflects stress on the system and looks daunting. This can be wrong, says Vles, if the single queue is being served by multiple employees. “Seeing a line snake back and forth across the width of a store three times can be deceiving as to how long you may actually have to wait,” he observes in a recent blog post. “In what may appear to be a very long line, the service rate can be so good that the line moves very quickly.”
Consumer companies have increasingly realised that having lots of “short” queues for individual service points can be a mistake. That is partly because they can create logistical logjams (if one of those service points is disrupted, the whole line behind it is blocked). But there is also a more subtle point: multiple queues create consumer choice. While consumers often claim to want as much choice as possible, the option of selecting a line can itself create uncertainty, stress and competitive anger. After all, the only thing worse than waiting in line is watching others jump the queue through luck or skill. The beauty of having a single line, by contrast, is that any delays “get distributed across the entire system”, Vles says. Call it if you like the upside of socialism: sometimes shared pain feels almost reassuring.
Then there is another point: if a line is arranged as a snake, there is the illusion of constant progress (ie small movement) relative to other people. A single line sometimes also enables companies to ease the pain by offering some distraction or entertainment. Richard Larson, an MIT professor who has studied queueing theory, says this tactic is used well by companies such as Disney. Even without such gimmicks, a single line can provide signposts to consumers, which is reassuring, according to queue psychologists. Hence the growing trend for airports, stores and Disney theme parks to arrange customers in a single line, often with “waiting times”. “Even if you see a very long line, as long as it’s the only option, you should be pleased,” Vles concludes. “You don’t have to guess which line to get in. Little’s Law means a single long line is the fairest way to get everyone out of there as fast as possible.”
Unless, of course, a system is created that offers consumers the chance to “purchase” privileged access by paying a higher price (such as speedy access at airports). This is usually considered to be relatively fair, say queue psychologists, as long as the system for getting privilege is transparent and consistent.
Perhaps queue psychology has broader implications. We live in an age when we take it for granted that consumers want as much choice as possible. But when we think about how consumer companies and transport groups are increasingly organising their lines, there would seem to be another lesson too: people find it reassuring when there is a sense of fairness, a feeling of progress (however tiny), clear signposts and even a collective spirit of suffering. To put it another way, when it comes to queueing, a sense of centrally managed order often seems preferable than unfettered choice and competition. We might accept the idea that paying a higher price might produce some privilege but we want this done in a transparent way. Options that produce deeply unequal results for reasons that are unclear — but supposedly place the responsibility for “choice” on our shoulders — are stressful.
Could we learn from queueing science more widely, in non-consumer parts of our lives — say with the provision of government services or other goods? No doubt many FT readers would say “no”— nobody likes the idea of queueing in any form. But the next time you’re standing in a line at an airport or shop, take note of how it is organised. If nothing else, it may help you become a touch more Zen.
请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：
A.Online shopping does not have any effect on how you feel about real-world queuing.
B.Online shopping makes real-world queuing easier to accept.
C.Online shopping makes real-world queuing harder to tolerate.
D.Online shopping makes real-world queuing unnecessary.
答案 (1)
A.The line with several short queues
B.The line with single long queue
C.The line with a pact of un-orderly people
D.The line with several long queues
答案 (2)
A.It won't get any delay.
B.The customer can make choices.
C.Any delays “get distributed across the entire system”.
D.The customer can compare with other queues.
答案 (3)
A.Giving customer choice is wrong.
B.People will always be reassured as long as they can make their own decision.
C.A sense of fairness, a feeling of progress and clear signposts can calm people down.
D.People don't want to know how privileges are distributed among them.
答案 (4)
(1) 答案：C解释：The more the online world promises to deliver instant gratification, the harder it seems to be to wait.
(2) 答案：B解释：“In what may appear to be a very long line, the service rate can be so good that the line moves very quickly.”
(3) 答案：C解释：The beauty of having a single line, by contrast, is that any delays “get distributed across the entire system”, Vles says. Call it if you like the upside of socialism: sometimes shared pain feels almost reassuring.
(4) 答案：C解释：But when we think about how consumer companies and transport groups are increasingly organising their lines, there would seem to be another lesson too: people find it reassuring when there is a sense of fairness, a feeling of progress (however tiny), clear signposts and even a collective spirit of suffering. To put it another way, when it comes to queueing, a sense of centrally managed order often seems preferable than unfettered choice and competition.