Queue area

The first written description of people standing in line is found in an 1837 book, The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle.

[5] Carlyle described what he thought was a strange sight: people standing in an orderly line to buy bread from bakers around Paris.

Large stores and supermarkets may have dozens of separate queues, but this can cause frustration, as different lines tend to be handled at different speeds; some people are served quickly, while others may wait for longer periods of time.

This led to the development of formalized queue areas—areas in which the lines of people waiting to board the rides are organized by railings, and may be given shelter from the elements with a roof over their heads, inside a climate-controlled building or with fans and misting devices.

In some amusement parks – Disney theme parks being a prime example – queue areas can be elaborately decorated, with holding areas fostering anticipation, thus shortening the perceived wait for people in the queue by giving them something interesting to look at as they wait, or the perception that they have arrived at the threshold of the attraction.

In a waiting room there may be a system whereby the queuer asks and remembers where their place is in the queue, or reports to a desk and signs in, or takes a ticket with a number from a machine.

Restaurants have come to employ virtual queueing techniques with the availability of application-specific pagers, which alert those waiting that they should report to the host to be seated.

Another option used at restaurants is to assign customers a confirmed return time, basically a reservation issued on arrival.