The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reports on a former math teacher who claims to solved the question "Which checkout line up will be fastest?"
In a nutshell he has concluded that the number of people in the lineup is more important than the number of items a person has in their cart.
The critical factor, he says, is the average of 41 seconds that it takes a shopper to pay the cashier and engage in idle chit chat.
So a long line of people in the Express line, with two or three items each, will actual move slower than the checkout with one guy with a full shopping cart.
YMMV.
(Score: 1) by kramulous on Monday September 19 2016, @05:41AM
Yup. I always do a very quick items per minute estimate of the checkout clerk.
I remember something about the number of people in the line taking longer being part of a paper published years ago. I take it into consideration but, here in Aus, majority people just wave their cards to the sensor and the transaction completes in a second or two. It is not really much of an issue.