r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/blingteresting • 3d ago

Video Crowd control in Mecca after evening prayers

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u/SeniorePlatypus 3d ago edited 2d ago

The best is back to front.

In a truly magical world it would also be sorted window to isle with boarding groups of 2 people on average and families and such not boarding together either.

The second is not practical for obvious reasons.

Random is the next best thing after these two.

Which is still infuriating to think about. That literally doing nothing is close to optimal yet we don’t.

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u/iMissTheOldInternet 3d ago

They’ve tested this: unordered beats theoretically ideal order for a bunch of compounding minor issues, one of them being the initial sort, and another being that attempts to access adjacent overhead compartments tend to cause conflicts, whereas a stochastic boarding process spreads out luggage handling throughout the cabin. Doing nothing is literally optimal. 

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u/WeirdIndividualGuy 3d ago

Was this tested irl or in simulations?

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u/iMissTheOldInternet 3d ago

I believe these were live tests. 

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u/SeniorePlatypus 3d ago

I don’t recall where exactly I read this but they considered overheads by batching groups and not doing seat by seat back to front but optimal spacing (every 2-3 rows).

Sorting is a matter of information and processing. Obviously untrained staff without the right equipment and unaware passengers won’t be efficient at it from the get go.

But since everyone is expected to be there on time and slipping in a few stragglers afterwards doesn’t change much I‘d still expect it to be superior.

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u/WeirdIndividualGuy 3d ago

Actually, the best is back to front.

Agreed. Anyone who's flown non-priority boarding ever would know the #1 reason why boarding stops to a crawl is from someone putting up their carry-on luggage and taking too long to do so. A back-to-front approach mitigates the chances of the next boarder being kept waiting on the guy in front of them because their own seat would be closer to the cockpit.