The Line of Least Resistance

Project Overview

On a warm Saturday afternoon, Andrew found himself still waiting 30 minutes after his scheduled trip up the iconic St. Louis arch. Reflecting on the experience weeks later with fellow Systems Science and Engineering student Devon, they hypothesized there had to be a more efficient way to run the system by fixing how they manage the masses with their queues.

We aim to model the current system at the Arch, and then work on designing a system that both accurately models customer behavior and eliminates delay time. Once this has been done, we will develop an application that Arch officials, as well as officials at other tourist attractions, can use to provide suggestions on setting up their queues on a given day in order to minimize delay time while also maximizing profits.

Team Members

• Devon Essick
• Andrew Sweren
• Kjartan Brownell (TA)

Objectives

Note: Each objective depends on the success of the first one.

• Create an application that accurately suggests how to most efficiently (in terms of minimal delay time) set up queues on a given day at a tourist attraction
• Expand the application in order to be useful to other companies that aim to minimize delay time.
• Expand application to be able to minimize wait time as well as delay time

Challenges

• Creating realistic simulations that take into account most to all variables
• Extrapolating the method for creating a better system at the arch into something that can be used to minimize delay time anywhere
• Coding the app

Budget

• Trip to the Arch for observation - $26
• Monitor and peripherals for demo (available from Urbauer 015) - $0

Total: $26

Gantt Chart