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Two queueing theorists of Ghent University investigated why queues at restrooms are invariably longer for ladies than for men. Time and time again. What are the main causes for this disparity? And how can it be overcome? Moving to unisex toilets, it appears from this study, may reduce waiting times for women from over 6 minutes to less than a minute and a half. Already a symbol for transgender equality, unisex toilets can hence boast excellent figures when it comes to reducing waiting times. Or, how transgender-friendliness may help in battling female-unfriendly toilet culture.
It turns out there are three main causes for the difference in waiting time between men and women. A first factor explaining why women wait longer is that the net number of toilets for women is smaller than that for men. This is because the total surface area is often divided equally while a toilet cabin inevitably takes up more space than a urinal. Overall, an average toilet area can accommodate 20 to 30 percent more toilets for men (urinals + cabins) than for women.
A second reason is that according to scientific studies women spend one and a half up to two times as long on the toilet. The reasons are mostly practical. In contrast to a urinal, a door must be opened and closed twice, a toilet seat needs cleaning, and more and more difficult clothes have to be taken off and on. This results in an average time spent at the toilet of 1 minute for men and 1 minute and 30 seconds for women.
A third factor is the overall activity at the restroom. As long as it's not too busy, the overall effect of ladies having a smaller number of toilets and spending more time on those toilets does not lead to long queues. However when for example everybody heads home, more women arrive at the toilets than the system can handle. This condition amplifies the above effects and results in outrageous waiting times for women.
Source: https://phys.org/news/2017-07-lengths-restroom.html
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 18 2017, @01:51PM (3 children)
This. Volume goes as the cube of the scaling factor. Meanwhile kidneys filter over a surface area and thus goes as the square of the scaling factor. So a 10% reduction in size results in roughly a 30% reduction in the ability to hold pee and only a 20% reduction in the ability to generate pee. Quite obvious really. Are you sure you're on the right internet?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday July 18 2017, @06:33PM (2 children)
Protein synthesis (therefore, waste production) should scale linear with mass assuming constant body temps and similar metabolisms, and bodies being mostly water means same density of waste generation, means same bladder storage capacity in minutes to full capacity. There should be a linear function expressing ml/hr of waste production per kg of body regardless of gender.
Assuming that genetically bladders are identical in ml volume to Kg body mass for all genders, which admittedly is pretty dumb given that most body parts are NOT constant regardless of gender (consider breast volume, obviously)
You could make a pretty good surface area to volume ratio argument about skin based on the idea little women lose more water to sweat given a more favorable surf area to volume ratio and spherical large men lose more water to pee. A kilo of flesh has to dissipate a watt or so of heat even at base rate, right, so due to surface area reasons little women should run cooler than spherical large men.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 18 2017, @07:46PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday July 19 2017, @11:47AM
Those are very good points. However the structure isn't volume constrained as demonstrated on "people of walmart" and so forth. An even better example would be pregnancy, when the volume gets big the belly sticks out rather than going zero-to-negative bladder volume. There is a mass distribution argument such that there could be excessive pressure, maybe.