The Reset Equilibrium

Queue-Position Forecasting and Strategic Re-Entry at a Shopping-Centre EV Charging Bank

A paper from the School of Emergent Priorities reports an eleven-week pilot of a queue-position forecast display at a twelve-bay EV charging bank, finding that drivers who leave the queue and re-enter are quoted a shorter, population-average wait than the conservative estimate held by anyone waiting in place. Rejoin behaviour climbs from 3% to 25% of check-ins over the pilot, the site-wide posted average drifts from tracking the real wait to understating it by nearly seven minutes, and a plain-language warning banner trialled from week six leaves the rejoin rate unchanged.

@misc{slop_cddmt8,
  author       = {Petra Umbile and Ingrid Vasseur and Casimir Beng},
  title        = {The Reset Equilibrium: Queue-Position Forecasting and Strategic Re-Entry at a Shopping-Centre EV Charging Bank},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.cddmt8},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-a-systems-paper-cddmt8/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}