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Old Jul 18, 2012 | 10:27 am
  #97  
El Cochinito
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Join Date: Jul 2000
Location: Sacramento, California, USA
Posts: 2,978
Originally Posted by jkhuggins
Traffic through an airport checkpoint doesn't proceed at a steady rate; there will be times of high-demand and times of low-demand. If TSA staffs its checkpoint for low-demand times, there will never be idle TSOs --- but there will be long checkpoint lines (at which point, the FT population will scream about the waste of their time). If TSA staffs its checkpoint for high-demand times, there will be moments when TSOs are idle (at which point, the FT population will scream about the waste of their tax dollars).
There is an entire branch of mathematics devoted to queuing theory and the optimization of queue management. The data necessary to drive optimization algorithms for checkpoint setup and staffing is certainly available to the TSA. Whether or not they have anybody in that organization that can do something with it is up for speculation.

I still vividly remember a class in queuing theory that I took years ago as an undergrad in engineering school. Fascinating stuff but it made my head hurt then (and now!).
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