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Physicist cuts plane boarding time in half

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Re: Physicist cuts plane boarding time in half

#41

Post by mgkimsal »

I flew a few weeks ago and dialogued (argued? - tried to be good natured about it!) with the boarding staff at 3 different gates about boarding processes. I suggested they try windows first, then middle seats, then aisle seats. 2 out of the 3 argued back that the way they were doing it had been 'proven' by some study some years back by... either a Finnish airline, or some studies in Arizona - I honestly can't remember which they said (but they'd both said the same place). Very odd, because it's demonstrably pretty damn slow, and often the slowness is quite visible - people with window seats having to stop and climb over someone in the aisle and middle seats, causing a backup. Agreed, it's not the only cause of backups, but in my recent 6 flights, 5 of the boarding processes were rather significantly slowed by multiple window/aisle snafus.

As much as someone wants to say "we've studied this already, and this is the best way to do it!", you'd have a hard time convincing me that any major airline knows how to make good decisions about anything.

Re: Physicist cuts plane boarding time in half

#42

Post by pangram »

zeteo wrote: post #20

Looking at the paper, it seems the passengers were the same and boarded five times in a row, with the last two methods proving the fastest. The major experimental flaw seems to be that the passengers themselves might learn to become more efficient after concentrating on a normally rare task, and repeating it several times in a row. Also, since some of them were paid extras, they might just be getting impatient by the…

These are good points (and there are other confounding factors, such as the fact that anybody taking part in the test would naturally be more familiar with block boarding). Nonetheless it seems like it might be worth trying out, as they do have some theoretical basis for the improvements.

Re: Physicist cuts plane boarding time in half

#43

Post by city41 »

zeteo wrote: post #20

Looking at the paper, it seems the passengers were the same and boarded five times in a row, with the last two methods proving the fastest. The major experimental flaw seems to be that the passengers themselves might learn to become more efficient after concentrating on a normally rare task, and repeating it several times in a row. Also, since some of them were paid extras, they might just be getting impatient by the…

There are other practical considerations too. I can't even imagine trying to organize the passengers in the airport such that they board in the alternating row, outside-in configuration.

And there's the pretty much insolvable problem of when they start boarding the plane, many people just get on and couldn't care less that their row/section hasn't been called yet.

Re: Physicist cuts plane boarding time in half

#45

Post by jcampbell1 »

jgfoot wrote: post #37

Airlines have been doing their own research into this, apparently. American Airlines is switching to randomized boarding (one of Steffen's proposed solutions) and United is partially switching to window-middle-aisle. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405311190423340457645...

No only that, they have been doing research into this for a long time. Below is an article from 2006, that references an implementation of a mathematical model in 2002.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/14/business/14boarding.html

Re: Physicist cuts plane boarding time in half

#46

Post by aurelianito »

city41 wrote: post #43
zeteo wrote: post #20

Looking at the paper, it seems the passengers were the same and boarded five times in a row, with the last two methods proving the fastest. The major experimental flaw seems to be that the passengers themselves might learn to become more efficient after concentrating on a normally rare task, and repeating it several times in a row. Also, since some of them were paid extras, they might just be getting impatient by the…

There are other practical considerations too. I can't even imagine trying to organize the passengers in the airport such that they board in the alternating row, outside-in configuration. And there's the pretty much insolvable problem of when they start boarding the plane, many people just get on and couldn't care less that their row/section hasn't been called yet.

The first part is easy, color code the ticket (e.g. first red, then blue, etc). The second issue is trickier, but it happens now anyway. I would say that they already know how to handle it.

Re: Physicist cuts plane boarding time in half

#49

Post by SonicSoul »

this method seems to assume that people will line up in perfect order so that no one blocks anyone else, but that simply isn't the case. the alternating rows that were called would stagger in random order and blocking would occur as normal. probably enforcing less carryon would speed the process up the most, but they'd have to make the checked in baggage pickup quick and easy to give people more incentives to check in.. maybe even offer a service that picks up rollies right at the gate and makes the available after getting off the plane..

Re: Physicist cuts plane boarding time in half

#50

Post by Zak »

frossie wrote: post #47

Savings from sophisticated method to board plane faster: 110 million dolars Getting passengers to board when (and only when) it's actually their turn: priceless (and, I suspect, far trickier)

Getting passengers to board when (and only when) it's actually their turn: priceless

Yes, exactly. I tend to wait for the final boarding call so as to spend less time in line and on a cramped plane.

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