I happened to be in Chicago in April 2010 when Apple launched the iPad. As a journalist, I talked to people standing in a serpentine queue to buy the tablet and wrote about it. In hindsight, had I bought one myself, I could have earned some bragging rights by flaunting what quickly became a coveted product.
Memories of that queue and others came flooding in last week as I witnessed two contrasting lines. One was a row of empty LPG cylinders in a Noida area filled with shanties. The other was at a plush South Delhi shopping hub where well-heeled people crowded outside an eatery where the biggest draw apparently was the Karnataka delicacy of benne dosa. The dosa crowd was inside a cordon, waiting to be waved in, while across the street there was another lot waiting to be allowed into the cordon.
I won’t know whether the dosa was really that much in demand or the situation was staged as a marketing gimmick. But I do know of an entrepreneur who once prominently tagged his fashion show as invitation-only just to make the glitterati assume it’s a not-to-be-missed event. Affluent folks queue up, too—sometimes more to be seen than to see.
But queues, for the most part, are a business of demand, supply, logistics and convenience. One has to deconstruct the phenomenon to get a hang of what can be done about them where supplies cannot be easily increased or a premium charged.
A business class air-ticket often involves a premium that enables one to jump queues while boarding or de-boarding, but often that does not apply to the security check, where, like voter queues in elections, the well-to-do have to stand in line with the hoi polloi. A friend once joked how South Mumbai’s rich residents do not vote because there is no valet parking at the booths.
However, it is becoming clearer that where premiums cannot be charged—and logistics management and convenience are the main issues—queues are better managed with technology.
Take our deities. Some temples have introduced paid darshan despite all being equal in front of god. Those in favour argue that it helps subsidise charitable activities. The Tirupati temple has pioneered a system of affordable bar-coded wristbands or Sudarshan tokens that spare pilgrims the agony of long waiting times.
There is inevitably a black-market for booking queue slots, too. To avoid the gaming of such slots, the Vaishno Devi temple near Jammu uses radio frequency identification tags called Yatra Access Cards or online slips called Yatra Parchi bought through a mobile app. Pilgrims need to get these at the base in Katra and complete their pilgrimage within 24 hours while computer networks and CCTVs track the devout on their uphill journey. A 200-metre skywalk separates incoming and outgoing pilgrims and AI-powered surveillance enables crowd management.
Sporting venues, which are often accorded a quasi-religious status in cricket-crazy India, are also increasingly comfortable with high-tech solutions. Internet-enabled sensors help track footfalls, AI cameras help identify crowd bottlenecks in real time, while digital ticketing and biometric recognition help quicken the throughput at entry lines. Mobile apps for ordering food and drinks from seats help fans stay put without having to another queue inside the stadium.
Rock show organisers use virtual queues to avoid hustles and potential stampedes. Users are assigned QR codes to enter a ‘digital queue’ with text message notifications to join a physical queue when the turn arrives.
Even if you cannot afford business-class air tickets, the Digi Yatra app can help. It enables contactless, paperless and somewhat seamless airport travel in India by using facial recognition, though I can tell you from experience that it does not work evenly at all times in all places. Sometimes the system’s glitches require human intervention, especially because new technological interventions usually require training for both users and gatekeepers.
Several apps are now available to manage queues and crowds depending on the size, scope, price and industry. With names like Qmatic, Wavetec, QueueHub, Waitwhile, Qnomy, these apps offer to help various kinds of enterprises—from temples and retail stores to hospitals and factory complexes. Software is tailored to ease complex journeys, user safety, regulatory requirements and multi-location needs.
We really need better, government-managed apps to manage traffic jams, which are essentially vehicle queues. While on this track, I find the Delhi Metro enabling faster, cheaper and more convenient commutes for me than, say, a chauffeured car. Time-plexing of local travel is quite possible—if only government agencies would think with the sense of detail and purpose that some big corporations do.
(Views are personal)
Read all columns Madhavan Narayanan
Madhavan Narayanan
Reverse Swing | Senior journalist
On X @madversity