queue
/kjuː/ noun- A line of people or vehicles waiting their turn.
- Time spent waiting that nobody planned for.
28 July 2026 · Utrecht · 1 minute
Why a queue at the charger is mostly not knowing
Every charging hub is a small queueing system. Cars arrive at random, stay for a while and leave. When they arrive faster than they leave, a line forms, and the line is what drivers remember.
Average wait at one hub, by part of the day.
1
The shape of a bad evening
The evening peak is short and steep. Commuters arrive within the same hour, each with a little less charge than they would like, each hoping to be quick.
A taxi driver, Amsterdam
I don’t mind waiting. I mind not knowing that I’ll wait.
2
What helps
- Show the wait before the driver commits to the stop.
- Offer the next hub, with its wait, in the same glance.
- Hold a place for a car that is already on its way:
- only for a few minutes,
- only when the hub is close to full.
None of these makes the hub bigger. All of them make the queue shorter, because a queue is partly made of people who did not know about it. See range.