I Need to present these findings to my ski area...
Instead of having 6 lift lines that zipper into one they should have 12 lines merge into one. We would all get to the top of the mountain faster.
In fact, move the merge point closer to where we get on the chair instead of being further back 20 feet ... that'll speed things right up.
Oh, and if there's ever a line with an opening, jump out of the back of your line and into the front of the empty line so you can zipper into the merge point sooner. You're actually doing the people a favor that you skipped ahead of because everyone will get to the top sooner.
Just explain to them how you use to be behind them and now your in front of them but they will get to top sooner because you utilized that empty line. "US traffic studies show..."
It's so simple. I can't believe not one ski resort has thought of this.
You can't honestly believe this is the same thing, right? It's shtick?
Honestly probably someone who thinks singles are the worst for skiing anyway and refuses to use the empty single lane to skip to the front every time LOL
It's obviously a different scenario. Let's pretend you're being genuine and you think this and want to learn.
Let's even pretend it IS kind of the same. What's different?
You aren't causing a chain reaction holdup in the lift line. You DO actually zipper, with the guidance of a lift operator typically calling two and two or one and three or a four set or four singles, etc.
So let's try your twisted up analogy further. What's different? Imagine there is no lift operator, and most people just use the middle lane of the ski lift on each side and line up three or four across and hop on, sometimes the lift leaves with two or three or four but not always full. Then a single comes by the outside lane because, well, why not? There's a lane there! Except someone in a pair doesn't see the single hop on with the pair form the other side, they get tangled up, and now nobody is getting on the lift until they untangle.
Or, less extreme, they look at each other and try to figure out who's gonna go and one chair comes by and leaves empty because of the awkward hold up.
That's more akin to what's happening. They aren't properly zippering, and so every single person behind them is now one chair behind their timing. And every tangle up that causes a less than full chair causes even more wait. So now the line for the lift is getting longer. Usually 60 people per minute flow by, but now only 50 people are getting on it.
So a like that's generally 20-30 people deep is now 30-40 people deep. But because the flow is still slow, a minute later it's longer. Another minute...longer. The delays pile up. THAT is what happens in traffic.
The highway WOULD flow faster with 12 lanes, as would the ski chair, IF 12 people could get on it, or highway wise if there was so much traffic as to need more lanes. This idiotic "it's just like water in pipes!" Ignores the fact that water doesn't change its behavior by observing other water.
Your ski lift operation is a bad analogy because you don't do the math right. And it's VERY easy math, which is why I think you're being disingenuous. It wouldn't be a terrible analogy, if you recognized that the question is more like "Do you think lift lines would suffer if instead of being four wide for a chair that holds four, we just had one line that was only one person wide?" Or "Would lift lines suffer and people may miss a chair or otherwise progress slowly if we cut the lanes in half partway through, then allowed them to widen again ten yards before the chair, AND we removed the operator?"
