Originally Posted by
El Cochinito
There is an entire branch of mathematics devoted to queuing theory and the optimization of queue management.
Indeed there is. In fact, the person I shared an office with at NYU was doing her PhD thesis on queuing theory as it applied to a computer interconnection network.
The data necessary to drive optimization algorithms for checkpoint setup and staffing is certainly available to the TSA. ... 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!).
As you may remember from that class, the behavior of a queue is heavily dependent on the distribution of arrival times. If you make reasonably-simple probabalistic models of those times, the math isn't that hard, but any simple models won't reflect reality. The closer the model reflects reality, the more complex the math. And it's made even more complicated by the non-uniform departure rate.