For me ... based on only one data point, no. 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).

About the only thing constant is FT screaming about the TSA.

A fair point in general, but a single TSO isn't going to be enough to open a third checkpoint on his own, and if they had enough staff to have a third checkpoint open then why wasn't it open already?

Having one or two extra bodies around the checkpoint is usually a good thing. Stuff happens that having an extra body around would make easier to handle. A passenger requests/requires a pat-down screening, taking another person away from the "normal" flow of the checkpoint. Another passenger requires assistance in proceeding through the checkpoint (e.g. physical disability). A passenger reports a lost item, requiring a trip back to the office to check the lost-and-found repository. And that's just the "nice" examples.

Very true, and this applies in any place with a fluctuating 'customer' base - McDonald's, bank drive-through lanes, movie theaters, DMV...

Somehow the rest of the world seems to have mastered this problem at airport checkpoints. I have honestly simply never ever seen the 'thousands standing around' security folks at any non-US airport. There are a fraction of the number of people and at any given time, they really all do seem to have a purpose. Of course, I haven't witnessed challenging positions like 'WTMD blocker' or 'walk around and bark TSO' or 'stand around waiting to do a grope TSO' or 'stand around prepared to gawk if anything interesting happens' or 'xray belt input rearranger' or 'groper monitor'.

(Note: sadly, the same appropriate staffing doesn't seem to extend to customs/immigration, either here or outside the US).

My mistake from seeing your pics of "your" dirty ambulance in Australia, Tom.

OK, here's the scoop. It's not a "fine" and the effects of non-payment are totally different than if it were. It is a "civil penalty" and the TSA has absolutely no enforcement powers with respect to the fine. No collection efforts, no contempt powers. It is in no way illegal to ignore the assessment. If the goon squad wants to get serious about it, they have to find a US Attorney in the right jurisdiction who will agree to drop everything else and file a civil lawsuit to collect the penalty. There are a lot of factors militating against such a course of action.First, Us Attorneys have a lot on their plates. They are responsible for all federal criminal cases in their district, including most post-conviction relief cases, as well as defending all civil cases in their district which might be filed against any federal department, office, or officer, They also provide legal support to all federal LEOs in their district. Finally, as appointed officials, they are very, very political and always have an eye to future office. Rudy Guliani, as a former USA for the Southern District of NY, comes immediately to mind. Being known for being in the back pocket of the second, for now, most despised agency in the government is not politically expedient. I would hazard a guess that US Attorneys are much more experienced, and inclined, to prosecute TSA criminals than to collect their civil penalties.

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!).

The thing about queueing theory is this: queuing theory works to optimize throughput versus cost in the aggregate. At any single point in time, an observer might see a long line, or an empty line. Over time, however, queueing theory tries to minimize both of those items versus any other unmanaged strategy.

Which is why it's terribly hard to respond to a single datapoint, like the one offered by the OP.

Remember that the entire premise of behavior detection is junk science of the worst kind, so it is only right that it would find a home at TSA.

^^ I refuse to enage any TSA employee with conversation other than what is necessary for me to get past their foolishness and go on my way.

I completely agree. I do not respond to entreaties, no matter how socially "right" or trivial, from any person in the checkpoint who is with the TSA or might be with the TSA. I remain silent to all questions, directives, hassling, etc. Only after I opt out do I respond to questions about the groping procedure; and this is where I then do my pushback as needed (especially referring to the "resistance" in medically correct terms and so on).

This is an indoctrination effort underway on the travelling public. To me, it's no different from "Geben Sie mir Ihre Reisepapiere!"

Oh I understand the concepts, quite well I might add.

But please feel free to point that out to your fellow posters when they make like remarks concerning the TSA's screening. Or do you feel that you cannot cite the law in such instances because of your personal bias?

I usually do.

"Personal bias"? Care to hazard a guess as to why I have a bias against TSA? Hint: it's in my post that you quoted.

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.

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.

More important with the CP, is that the queue varies based on the variability of the time to get through the queue. As passenger times begin to vary widely, particularly if there are outliers, like me and my NEXUS card at the TDC, that create statistical anomalies that make the math much more difficult. Add to that the tendency of all variability on the queue due to TSA inconsistency to move the time in queue up without corresponding variability down, as things get busier, the time per person likely increasws.

You do remember that you're dealing with an organization that - at the top level - decided that 3.4 (oz) was close enough to 3 (oz) that they couldn't be bothered to update the signs and the PA announcements, right? HQ staff who, at goalie points out regularly, can't add up how many items they found at checkpoints in a given week? Something tells me that math isn't their strong point.