Policy Lab
Same tickets. Three rules. See who waits longer when the policy changes.
Choose the next rule
Choose a synthetic case and compare the cost of each rule. Times are in minutes. Every ticket is served; nobody leaves these fixed queues.
Normal Day — FCFS
- Mean wait
- 15.88 min
- Median wait
- 14 min
- Longest wait
- 43 min
- Tickets waiting > 5 min
- 6
- Overtaking events
- 0
Service order / first to last
- ND01
- ND02
- ND03
- ND04
- ND05
- ND06
- ND07
- ND08
Overtaking counts each later-arriving ticket served ahead of an earlier one. It is not a count of unique people.
Compare all policies for Normal Day
No ranking is implied — these are the same five figures, side by side, for one scenario.
Scroll the table horizontally to see every column.
| Policy | Mean wait | Median wait | Max wait | Wait > 5 min | Overtaking total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FCFS | 15.88 | 14 | 43 | 6 | 0 |
| Quick Enquiries | 14.38 | 14 | 32 | 6 | 1 |
| Priority Lane | 15.88 | 18 | 32 | 5 | 5 |
Service order and per-ticket detail for the selected policy — the individual variance behind the averages above:
Scroll the table horizontally to see every column.
| ID | Category | Declared | Arrival | Order | Start | Completion | Wait | Overtaking |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ND01 | collect a form | No | 0 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| ND02 | collect a form | No | 1 | 2 | 5 | 10 | 4 | 0 |
| ND03 | collect a form | No | 2 | 3 | 10 | 15 | 8 | 0 |
| ND04 | collect a form | No | 3 | 4 | 15 | 20 | 12 | 0 |
| ND05 | collect a form | No | 4 | 5 | 20 | 25 | 16 | 0 |
| ND06 | collect a form | No | 5 | 6 | 25 | 30 | 20 | 0 |
| ND07 | dispute a printer credit | No | 6 | 7 | 30 | 50 | 24 | 0 |
| ND08 | enrolment variation | Yes | 7 | 8 | 50 | 58 | 43 | 0 |
Why this lab?
Waiting is not just absence of service — it allocates attention, risk and priority, and the ordering policy decides who gets which. Week 6 asked you to compute three policies by hand against one log; this lab runs the same three policies — FCFS, Quick Enquiries and the Priority Lane — against three fixed scenarios, so you can see the per-ticket variance a summary statistic hides, not just the summary itself.
Reflection
- Expand Normal Day's Priority Lane table below. Its overtaking total is 5, while FCFS's is always 0 by construction. Which specific ticket waited longest, and did it arrive early or late? Compare this with the defence you wrote for week 6 — would you still defend the same policy after reading the per-ticket table, not just the mean?
- High-declaration Day was built so most tickets declare priority. Under the Priority Lane, mean wait is 9.67 minutes versus 9.17 minutes under Quick Enquiries — close together. Given week 10's audit of self-declared urgency, what does a dataset where declaration is common do to the Priority Lane's actual selection power? Is a lane that almost everyone joins still a lane?
- System Shock blocks new service starts from minute 6 to minute 10; a ticket already in service still finishes. Expand all three System Shock tables below. Relative to week 11's worst-day case, would you expect the same ordering of outcomes to hold if the closed window were longer, or is that exactly the kind of generalisation the memo above warns against?
- The Policy Trial (week 7) asks for a comparison like this one, once, on a dataset you declare yourself. The Honest Queue (week 12) asks you to defend an ordering policy against normal demand, congestion, uncertainty, failure and cancellation together. Which of the three fixed scenarios above most resembles the demand you plan to declare for your own Policy Trial dataset, and why?
Browse every result without JavaScript
All nine scenario × policy combinations are available below. These tables remain available when the interactive picker cannot run.
Normal Day
Scroll the table horizontally to see every column.
| Policy | Mean wait | Median wait | Max wait | Wait > 5 min | Overtaking total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FCFS | 15.88 | 14 | 43 | 6 | 0 |
| Quick Enquiries | 14.38 | 14 | 32 | 6 | 1 |
| Priority Lane | 15.88 | 18 | 32 | 5 | 5 |
Normal Day — FCFS: per-ticket detail
Strict arrival order.
Scroll the table horizontally to see every column.
| ID | Category | Declared | Arrival | Order | Start | Completion | Wait | Overtaking |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ND01 | collect a form | No | 0 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| ND02 | collect a form | No | 1 | 2 | 5 | 10 | 4 | 0 |
| ND03 | collect a form | No | 2 | 3 | 10 | 15 | 8 | 0 |
| ND04 | collect a form | No | 3 | 4 | 15 | 20 | 12 | 0 |
| ND05 | collect a form | No | 4 | 5 | 20 | 25 | 16 | 0 |
| ND06 | collect a form | No | 5 | 6 | 25 | 30 | 20 | 0 |
| ND07 | dispute a printer credit | No | 6 | 7 | 30 | 50 | 24 | 0 |
| ND08 | enrolment variation | Yes | 7 | 8 | 50 | 58 | 43 | 0 |
Normal Day — Quick Enquiries: per-ticket detail
Shortest service time first, ignoring any declared priority.
Scroll the table horizontally to see every column.
| ID | Category | Declared | Arrival | Order | Start | Completion | Wait | Overtaking |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ND01 | collect a form | No | 0 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| ND02 | collect a form | No | 1 | 2 | 5 | 10 | 4 | 0 |
| ND03 | collect a form | No | 2 | 3 | 10 | 15 | 8 | 0 |
| ND04 | collect a form | No | 3 | 4 | 15 | 20 | 12 | 0 |
| ND05 | collect a form | No | 4 | 5 | 20 | 25 | 16 | 0 |
| ND06 | collect a form | No | 5 | 6 | 25 | 30 | 20 | 0 |
| ND08 | enrolment variation | Yes | 7 | 7 | 30 | 38 | 23 | 0 |
| ND07 | dispute a printer credit | No | 6 | 8 | 38 | 58 | 32 | 1 |
Normal Day — Priority Lane: per-ticket detail
Self-declared-urgent tickets served first as a group, then shortest first within whichever group is served.
Scroll the table horizontally to see every column.
| ID | Category | Declared | Arrival | Order | Start | Completion | Wait | Overtaking |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ND01 | collect a form | No | 0 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| ND02 | collect a form | No | 1 | 2 | 5 | 10 | 4 | 0 |
| ND08 | enrolment variation | Yes | 7 | 3 | 10 | 18 | 3 | 0 |
| ND03 | collect a form | No | 2 | 4 | 18 | 23 | 16 | 1 |
| ND04 | collect a form | No | 3 | 5 | 23 | 28 | 20 | 1 |
| ND05 | collect a form | No | 4 | 6 | 28 | 33 | 24 | 1 |
| ND06 | collect a form | No | 5 | 7 | 33 | 38 | 28 | 1 |
| ND07 | dispute a printer credit | No | 6 | 8 | 38 | 58 | 32 | 1 |
High-declaration Day
Scroll the table horizontally to see every column.
| Policy | Mean wait | Median wait | Max wait | Wait > 5 min | Overtaking total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FCFS | 16.5 | 11.5 | 38 | 4 | 0 |
| Quick Enquiries | 9.17 | 8 | 23 | 4 | 6 |
| Priority Lane | 9.67 | 9 | 23 | 4 | 5 |
High-declaration Day — FCFS: per-ticket detail
Strict arrival order.
Scroll the table horizontally to see every column.
| ID | Category | Declared | Arrival | Order | Start | Completion | Wait | Overtaking |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HD01 | collect a form | Yes | 0 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| HD02 | collect a form | Yes | 1 | 2 | 5 | 10 | 4 | 0 |
| HD03 | enrolment variation | Yes | 2 | 3 | 10 | 18 | 8 | 0 |
| HD04 | dispute a printer credit | No | 3 | 4 | 18 | 38 | 15 | 0 |
| HD05 | collect a form | No | 4 | 5 | 38 | 43 | 34 | 0 |
| HD06 | other | Yes | 5 | 6 | 43 | 46 | 38 | 0 |
High-declaration Day — Quick Enquiries: per-ticket detail
Shortest service time first, ignoring any declared priority.
Scroll the table horizontally to see every column.
| ID | Category | Declared | Arrival | Order | Start | Completion | Wait | Overtaking |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HD01 | collect a form | Yes | 0 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| HD06 | other | Yes | 5 | 2 | 5 | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| HD02 | collect a form | Yes | 1 | 3 | 8 | 13 | 7 | 1 |
| HD05 | collect a form | No | 4 | 4 | 13 | 18 | 9 | 1 |
| HD03 | enrolment variation | Yes | 2 | 5 | 18 | 26 | 16 | 2 |
| HD04 | dispute a printer credit | No | 3 | 6 | 26 | 46 | 23 | 2 |
High-declaration Day — Priority Lane: per-ticket detail
Self-declared-urgent tickets served first as a group, then shortest first within whichever group is served.
Scroll the table horizontally to see every column.
| ID | Category | Declared | Arrival | Order | Start | Completion | Wait | Overtaking |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HD01 | collect a form | Yes | 0 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| HD06 | other | Yes | 5 | 2 | 5 | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| HD02 | collect a form | Yes | 1 | 3 | 8 | 13 | 7 | 1 |
| HD03 | enrolment variation | Yes | 2 | 4 | 13 | 21 | 11 | 1 |
| HD05 | collect a form | No | 4 | 5 | 21 | 26 | 17 | 1 |
| HD04 | dispute a printer credit | No | 3 | 6 | 26 | 46 | 23 | 2 |
System Shock (closed to new starts from minute 6 to 10)
Scroll the table horizontally to see every column.
| Policy | Mean wait | Median wait | Max wait | Wait > 5 min | Overtaking total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FCFS | 7.33 | 8 | 13 | 4 | 0 |
| Quick Enquiries | 5.67 | 3.5 | 12 | 2 | 4 |
| Priority Lane | 5.83 | 5 | 12 | 3 | 3 |
System Shock — FCFS: per-ticket detail
Strict arrival order.
Scroll the table horizontally to see every column.
| ID | Category | Declared | Arrival | Order | Start | Completion | Wait | Overtaking |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SS01 | collect a form | No | 0 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| SS02 | enrolment variation | Yes | 1 | 2 | 4 | 7 | 3 | 0 |
| SS03 | collect a form | Yes | 2 | 3 | 10 | 13 | 8 | 0 |
| SS04 | dispute a printer credit | No | 5 | 4 | 13 | 19 | 8 | 0 |
| SS05 | enrolment variation | Yes | 6 | 5 | 19 | 21 | 13 | 0 |
| SS06 | other | No | 9 | 6 | 21 | 23 | 12 | 0 |
System Shock — Quick Enquiries: per-ticket detail
Shortest service time first, ignoring any declared priority.
Scroll the table horizontally to see every column.
| ID | Category | Declared | Arrival | Order | Start | Completion | Wait | Overtaking |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SS01 | collect a form | No | 0 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| SS02 | enrolment variation | Yes | 1 | 2 | 4 | 7 | 3 | 0 |
| SS05 | enrolment variation | Yes | 6 | 3 | 10 | 12 | 4 | 0 |
| SS06 | other | No | 9 | 4 | 12 | 14 | 3 | 0 |
| SS03 | collect a form | Yes | 2 | 5 | 14 | 17 | 12 | 2 |
| SS04 | dispute a printer credit | No | 5 | 6 | 17 | 23 | 12 | 2 |
System Shock — Priority Lane: per-ticket detail
Self-declared-urgent tickets served first as a group, then shortest first within whichever group is served.
Scroll the table horizontally to see every column.
| ID | Category | Declared | Arrival | Order | Start | Completion | Wait | Overtaking |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SS01 | collect a form | No | 0 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| SS02 | enrolment variation | Yes | 1 | 2 | 4 | 7 | 3 | 0 |
| SS05 | enrolment variation | Yes | 6 | 3 | 10 | 12 | 4 | 0 |
| SS03 | collect a form | Yes | 2 | 4 | 12 | 15 | 10 | 1 |
| SS06 | other | No | 9 | 5 | 15 | 17 | 6 | 0 |
| SS04 | dispute a printer credit | No | 5 | 6 | 17 | 23 | 12 | 2 |