Monday, February 07, 2011

Electronic Queuing

I read in the newspapers that a grandparent queued for several days for a place in the kindergarten for a grandchild. They felt that it was worth putting in the sacrifice for the grandchild. We also read about several day queues for places in primary school and for new property launches.

The several day queues have become ridiculous but is a feature of Singapore life - the outcome of our kiasu syndrome. There is a more sensible way to handle the queue. It is the electronic queue.  It is possible to develop a portal to allow a queue to be formed for any type of high preference activity and for electronic balloting to be conducted to find the priority in the queue among all the applicants who submitted their application by a closing date.

Tan Kin Lian

Here is my letter printed in the Straits Times Online Forum.
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5 comments:

captaincaveman said...

Actually queuing for days to get the thing that one wants is not unique to Singaporeans. We have read and also reports on TV news about people queueing weeks and months also in other countries. Hence I disagree that queuing thing is unique to Singaporeans.

February 07, 2011 8:26 AM
Tan Kin Lian said...

Hi captaincaveman
You are right. It is not unique to Singapore. It is probably quite common in third world countries, but perhaps not so common in the developed countries.

Thanks for expressing your views in a constructive manner.

February 07, 2011 8:42 AM
Tan Kin Lian said...

Hi captaincaveman
I like to give you the tangram book as a prize for being constructive in your comment. Please send your address to me at kinlian@gmail.com.

February 07, 2011 8:57 AM
Tan Kin Lian said...

A venture fund is interested to develop this idea and has contacted me.

I think there is potential to have a portal that can help improve life for everybody, including the people who queues and the employees who have to serve these angry and tired applicants who have to spend days in the queue.

February 08, 2011 8:29 AM
umam said...

I'm pretty sure queuing for kindergartens or or schools is fairly unique to SG. In US or UK, queuing is usually associated with special fun/hobby events such as tickets to favorite band concert, long awaited movie premiere, game release, etc and not for everyday life matters like school/kindergarten. Normally queues are formed by younger adults/teenagers and certainly not retirees.

February 09, 2011 4:15 PM

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