Smooth operations delayed vs. permanent chaos

Friday, 24 Mar 2006 | Miscellaneous

This morning I was traveling to a meeting by train, which was delayed because of a malfunction in the railroad security systems. It wasn’t just one train, but all trains going in and out of Utrecht (the countries’ main railroad hub) got either cancelled or delayed. The result: chaos.

I was going to chair that meeting, but was obviously unable to so I asked a team member to take over for me. I’ve learned to not care about these things, they happen and there is nothing I can do about them. So I was enjoying a cup of coffee as I was waiting to continue my journey. Looking around, I noticed countless people cursing the railroads and yelling at its employees. That made me wonder … is it better to have a system that runs smoothly and efficiently most of the time, but causes mayhem when things are disrupted, OR is it better for a society to be in a permanent state of chaos which everybody accepts as a given - much like I have found Bangkok to be?

Obviously, the benefits of an efficient system is time. One can plan a journey down to the minute and if everything works according to schedule, time of arrival is known before the journey has even started. People come to depend on the predictability and plan tight schedules around them, myself included. However, the benefit of having permanent chaos is that unpredictability is a given and so this too is something one can depend one when planning around a journey. The downside to efficiency ofcourse is the enormous impact disruptions have. The downside to permanent chaos I guess is the time spent on travels.

I think economically, an efficient system prevails. Although one could argue secondary aspects such as health issues due to elevated levels of stress during disruptions and creative planning of tasks or work for people using a permanent chaos (for example: ‘all my phonecalls are returned when I am in a taxi travelling from A to B, instead of at a desk’) make the difference smaller that one would expect at first hand.

But what does it mean for people and their well-being, how they feel? Do people in permanent chaos still get frustrated over a traffic jam every single time it happens? Is the level of frustration the same as those people I saw this morning, who had red heads and were hitting billboards?

I don’t know. But thats what I was wondering.