Happens everywhere

See the news from Chennai, 2005
See the news from New York, 2008

I can see a lot of similarities between these two. People started queuing up long before the scheduled opening. Once the commotion started, they showed no concern for anything else. Most importantly, the crowd did not care for the fellow human beings.

What is the motivation behind standing in those long queues?
I could think of the following 3 reasons.
1. Perceived “necessity”.
2. Limited resources and fear of being the last and to be shown the door.
3. Intention to come out of the queue quickly.

One should think about the risk in terms of the cost of time and money involved in standing in the queue and the benefits that they gain from successfully coming out of the queue. Once he is clear that the perceived benefits outweigh the cost in terms of money, unpleasantness associated with standing in the queue, time etc., only then he should proceed to stand in the queue.

The second reason is what it happens once the person is in the queue. This means he has already invested and he does not want to go empty handed and wants to get the maximum out of the investment. This is where he forgets about the ethics and everything else. This has a close association with the third reason. Since, he perceives that standing in the queue is so unpleasant he just wants to come out of it at the earliest possible time.

In this scenario, if the queue breaks up slightly for whatsoever reason, every individual will try to take advantage of it. He does not want anyone who entered the queue to go ahead of him and at the same time, if there is an opportunity he wants to make use of it. The same logic applies to every individual and this creates a chain of chaos and commotion. Remember that, the person who critically analyses point 1 will never stand in this queue, because he knows that the cost outweighs the benefits.

Two ways to overcome this problem:
1. Change the mindset of the people.
2. Better crowd management system.

Point number 1 is easy said than done. Forget it. Lots of investment required and no body will guarantee the output. Point number2 can definitely be implementable. Better queuing system with proper information about when does it start, what is the approximate time of standing in the queue etc will certainly help people make an informed decision. Also, if there are some features in the queue aimed at keeping people in the queue engaged, they may not feel that the time is wasted unproductive. Those features really depend on the context of the queue.