Queue area

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Queue areas are places in which people queue (first-come, first-served) for goods or services. Such a group of people is known as a queue (British usage) or line (American usage), and the people are said to be waiting or standing in a queue or in line, respectively. (In the New York City area, the phrase on line is often used in place of in line.)^[1] Occasionally, both the British and American terms are combined to form the term "queue line".^[2][3]

Examples include checking out groceries or other goods that have been collected in a self service shop, in a shop without self-service, at an ATM, at a ticket desk, a city bus, or in a taxi stand.

Queueing^[4] is a phenomenon in a number of fields, and has been extensively analysed in the study of queueing theory. In economics, queueing is seen as one way to ration scarce goods and services.