Money for Time? (Priority Queues)

Time and money is never enough in the world, therefore, people often have to choose between time and money in order to achieve what benefits them most. The article indicates that about people nowadays, are willing to pay in order to be able to get in front of the line and companies have taken this opportunity to make this their point to profit. The “serpentine” queue has then been established. Companies are making it easier for the people who are willing to pay more to enjoy an express way to get what they actually should be lining up for like the rest of the people and this has made the society to draw lines amongst themselves. The example of companies implementing this system are: Ryanair in Europe –where people who paid a higher air fare is able to board the plane ahead of their fellow air-mates, plus, they can have their particular seats they were given to choose whilst others have to keep booking tickets and the seats will be decided by the airline system; Six Flags White Water amusement park in Atlanta - which label their customers according to the rate they are paying. Those who purchased the green-and-gold wrist bands fitted with radio frequency technology, are able to swim in the pool or eat snacks before being notified of their turn and cutting half their waiting time.

And there is the Peach Pass in Atlanta, where it is a priority lane on the highway for drivers who are willing to pay an extra charge, charged depending on the traffic flow. This was named the “Lexus Lane”, as was stated in the article, because only the rich who can afford expensive cars would be take this lane.



             
   The idea of this is that different people have different concepts about time and money. In this situation, two types of people can be found, i.e. the one who prioritize money over time and the other who thinks that time is more important than money. The time given in a day is the same. However, the concepts and ability of one to pay more is what which differentiates or rather, influences the choices that one made. Business or upper-class people has the ability to use money to counter the time they have to spend on queuing so that they can have more
luxury time spent on other things, for example, quality time to spend with
their family members which they usually have a hard time to get one, or the business opportunity which they should be spending more time and effort on. On the other hand, those who are reluctant to pay more to cut queue will have to “pay” the price of time, conscionably or unconscionably. It may be because they have no time constraint, or they do not think that the shortening of time would have brought any better to them.

                  Choices are being made between time and money. These choices are known as tradeoffs, i.e. an exchange, or, giving-up of one thing to get something else. Economists take these choices made by people as a rational choice, which one compares costs and benefits and tries to achieve the greatest benefit over cost for the person making the choice. Only the wants of the person making a choice is relevant to determine the rationality. For example, people setting a tight schedule would want to cut queue and is willing to pay the extra charge so that they could benefit most of their time by fully utilizing them.

                 First, we turn to the people who are willing to pay an extra fee rather than to spend their time queuing. Everything is a choice and whenever there is a gain, or benefit, there must be a lost of something, which is, the opportunity cost. The benefit is the gain or pleasure that it brings and is determined by the preferences of a person. On the other hand, the opportunity cost of something is the highest-valued alternative that must be given up to get it. As we know well that being in queue takes up a lot of our time. To

do this, we must give up many hours of what would otherwise be spent on other more purposeful things in life. So the opportunity cost of queuing is all the good things that we cannot afford and do not have the spare time to enjoy it. On the other hand, we have people who are willing to spend their time in order to not have to spend the money which will buy them time. It is a giving up of their time. The rationality here is that if one is to have to take out money from their pockets to buy time, they would face a buck short which they could spend on other more purposeful thing. For example, by waiting a little longer in the queue at the hotdog stand, a person could use that money where others used to buy cutting queue time to buy an extra hotdog. 

                  Nevertheless, we can allocate the next hour between queuing and getting our hands on the next agenda we have placed in our schedule as soon as possible. To make this decision, we make comparisons between the marginal benefit and marginal cost. If the marginal benefit from an extra hour of waiting exceeds the marginal cost, we will continue queuing till we get to the point. But if the marginal cost exceeds the marginal benefit, we will give up queuing by paying a little bit more to cut queue. Same goes as the situation where one is willing to give up their time so that they do not have to take money out of their pockets for something that they have time to wait for.

                   Economists take human nature as given and view people as acting in their self-interest. Every human being pursues their self-interest, i.e. getting the most benefit for them based on their view about benefit. The main idea of this is that we can predict the self-interested choices that people make by looking at the incentives they face because people undertake those activities for which the marginal benefit exceeds the marginal costs and no the other way round.

                                                                                                              - by: Chong Ai Sim (1101F12341)