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: 2) by bob_super on Monday September 19 2016, @05:16PM
Additional detail: If the supermarket has a lingerie section, guy cashiers are kept as far away from it as possible, even when that requires switching multiple cashiers to cover a break.
The belief is that most women will just drop those purchases on the nearest shelf corner, rather than hand them to a guy cashier, and that's way too much margin to lose.