Old Yard Dog
Established Member
- Joined
- 21 Aug 2011
- Messages
- 1,492
On Wednesday 26th October, my wife and I decided to check in at Gare du Nord in good time for the 1843 from Paris to London due to the lack of seating on the station proper. Having gone up the escalator we were forced to stand in a separate queue as they were "prioritizing" (sic) passengers for the 1813 who were whisked straight through.
This situation continued for some time and it was well over half an hour before we got to the automatic check in gates. We then had to queue again at the French passport control desk. The staff there were regularly twiddling their thumbs unable to let more people through to avoid congestion at the UK border control where there was a huge backlog. Eventually we got through to join another queue but were delayed again by the number of people swanning up at the very last minute to catch the 1813, who were allowed straight through to the front. It made us wish we had turned up an hour later. Thankfully there was no queue at security. My wife has a bad knee and was in considerable pain by the time we finally got through to the cramped departure lounge.
As a consequence of all these shenanigans, the 1843 was delayed by 20 minutes and eventually arrived in London 25 minutes late. We were glad we had decided to stay the night in London rather than try catch the last train home from Euston at 2110. But many people must have been stranded in the capital.
UK passport control is clearly overstretched and their staff will not hurry for man nor beast. However throughput is not helped by the queueing system they employ. The capacity of a system (passengers per hour) can be determined by multiplying the number of servers by the average service time. If the number of arrivals exceeds the capacity, then the queue simply becomes longer and longer. Queues at chip shops or bars are self regulating in the sense that prospective customers simply walk away when the queue becomes to long. But passengers at airports and train stations do not have this option. The same applies to patients at A&E which is why hospital queues are so bad.
The queues at Gare do Nord could easily be reduced by allowing short queues to form at each counter instead of forcing each new passenger to wait at a single point until a counter becomes free. Several seconds are added to the average service time while the officer waits for the next passengers to walk across to his desk. These seconds soon add up while the officers on the end desks get a nice breather between visits.
The managers of our border control people need to get their act together. It is ludicrous that Eurostar are having to deploy extra staff simply to manage the queues.
This situation continued for some time and it was well over half an hour before we got to the automatic check in gates. We then had to queue again at the French passport control desk. The staff there were regularly twiddling their thumbs unable to let more people through to avoid congestion at the UK border control where there was a huge backlog. Eventually we got through to join another queue but were delayed again by the number of people swanning up at the very last minute to catch the 1813, who were allowed straight through to the front. It made us wish we had turned up an hour later. Thankfully there was no queue at security. My wife has a bad knee and was in considerable pain by the time we finally got through to the cramped departure lounge.
As a consequence of all these shenanigans, the 1843 was delayed by 20 minutes and eventually arrived in London 25 minutes late. We were glad we had decided to stay the night in London rather than try catch the last train home from Euston at 2110. But many people must have been stranded in the capital.
UK passport control is clearly overstretched and their staff will not hurry for man nor beast. However throughput is not helped by the queueing system they employ. The capacity of a system (passengers per hour) can be determined by multiplying the number of servers by the average service time. If the number of arrivals exceeds the capacity, then the queue simply becomes longer and longer. Queues at chip shops or bars are self regulating in the sense that prospective customers simply walk away when the queue becomes to long. But passengers at airports and train stations do not have this option. The same applies to patients at A&E which is why hospital queues are so bad.
The queues at Gare do Nord could easily be reduced by allowing short queues to form at each counter instead of forcing each new passenger to wait at a single point until a counter becomes free. Several seconds are added to the average service time while the officer waits for the next passengers to walk across to his desk. These seconds soon add up while the officers on the end desks get a nice breather between visits.
The managers of our border control people need to get their act together. It is ludicrous that Eurostar are having to deploy extra staff simply to manage the queues.