Ants provided some guidance for Doug Lawson, a systems analyst at Southwest Airlines.
"Because we know that ants have accomplished these amazing things right based on very simple rules, we know that if we want to see something complicated happen - like completely filling the interior of an aircraft with people - we know that simple ant-type behavior is adequate to represent what's occurring," Lawson said.
"So Southwest Airlines said, 'Help us figure out the most efficient way to help us get our passengers on a plane,' and you said, 'I know - I'll use ants'?" asked Salie.
"Yeah, right. Because they do complicated things with very simple rules," Lawson said.
Lawson used mathematically-modeled ants to determine the most efficient way of boarding a plane, which turns out to be open seating.
"So Southwest's way of boarding without seat numbers is actually more efficient than when I board another airline and know exactly what my seat is?" asked Salie.
"Right. When we simulated what the different airlines are doing, it turns out that with assigned seats, there's a one-third chance that you're going to ask two people to get up, whereas open seating - since the middle seat is the undesirable one - generally that's the one that's last to be filled, [so] only one person is likely to get up, the person sitting near the aisle," said Lawson. "I may have to ask somebody to get up and get out of the way to let me get to a seat, and that's about it. So it's really simple."
- via FS
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