Gibson - Lines Reading

Geometry of a Waiting Line

• Concerned only with the plane or floor area upon which it forms (vertical dimension is irrelevant)

• Non-continuous, consists of a finite number of discrete persons

• Can be curved

Imagined, social boundaries

To reconcile the geometry of lines with that of waiting lines, we must understand that waiting lines can be _______ and have ________ _________,wherein certain constructed elements must be present for a waiting line to be recognized for what it is.

Lines are guarantors of social order when there are competing demands on some scarce good.

Definition of a Line

Order of arrival

Lines are spatial configurations that store information about _______ __ _______.

Morphogenetic History

Lines develop incrementally through successive addition of newcomers to their ends. A person’s position in line reflects their relative time of arrival — lines encode time into space.

Resource Situation

Lines form when a sought-after good is to be dispensed in combination with three sets of circumstances: a) influx of demand that cannot be immediately satisfied (eg. deli counter) b) a good that is to be provided is in short supply (seating) or c) the quality of a good as experienced by an individual is thought to be negatively correlated with the number of people who have had prior access to it (ex. Amtrak window seats).

Exceptional Premise

People form lines under the assumption that they’ll be serviced in the order of place (first come, first serve). This is procedural implementation without explicit third-party enforcement — lines are self-policing, but norm deviation rarely occurs.There’s a tacit social contract at work, wherein people are ready to work together to provide a solution to the problem of distribution which could otherwise create a lot of

Line Inception

What happens early in a line’s history has an enduring impact on how it subsequently develops — the trajectory of a line is often formed through the joining decisions of the first few people in it, and its a stark example of path dependency.

Decisions of a Newcomer

How far to stand from the person in front, what position to assume given the distance and which direction to face.

Rule of Contiguous Conformity

One should, upon joining a line, extrapolate a straight line through the last two people and then assume a position on that line. Puts all the weight on the final two people, and does not allow for curvature.

Rule of Curvital Conformity

Upon joining a line, one should assume a position consistent with, and extending, its geometry. People estimate a “line of best fit” with those already lined up, and extrapolate that line to the last person before assuming the next vacant position.

Rule of Successor Non-Visibility

One should stand outside the field of vision of one’s predecessor in line (behind him or her in an anatomical sense). This relates to civil inattention, or the idea that strangers should avoid prolonged eye contact.

Group Joins

Many turns in a line are introduced immediately after a group (ie. a family) joins — members of a group rarely line up neatly, and are more likely to huddle together, muddying a line’s geometry. Whoever joins the line next is faced with the problem of choosing between multiple possible extrapolation, only a few of them consistent with line’s prior curvature.

Developmental Abberrations

Lines overwhelmingly develop in a way that unproblematically orders people in terms of the priority of their claims on a scarce good at issue. Ocasionally, developmental aberrations occur (ie. two lines forming at the same stairway for the same train).