Will the Internet of Things mean the death of queuing?

theguardian.com

If the future does arrive as promised, technology could herald the end of waiting to pay for goods and services. But what does that mean for Britishness?

They do it at bus stops, in airports and train stations, and in shops and banks nationwide. Queuing politely is considered a uniquely British trait, and millions instinctively observe its rituals and etiquette every day.

Yet this quaint tradition could die out soon, thanks to the Internet of Things, or IoT, connecting us with what we want to buy, how we choose to pay for it, and even how it’s delivered – without the need to wait in line for any of it.

Look at London’s Oyster card: it can be set to automatically top up credit, so most commuters in the capital never need to queue for Underground tickets. Transport for London is even using it as the impetus to remove staff from ticket offices.

Many of us have already seen this shift to technology when buying groceries, left to scan our Jaffa Cakes or ready meals on our own at self-service checkouts, silently screaming at the machine that there really is not an unexpected item in the bagging area.

But even that could be about to end. Supermarkets are already experimenting with ways to use RFID chips in product labels, said the University of Strathclyde’s Professor Lillian Edwards, who is chairing the Smart Cities conference being held in Glasgow on Tuesday and Wednesday.

“You can price your items as you put them into a basket or trolley using a reader, and you could even use that reader to add it all up ready to check out by the time you get to the end,” she says. It could be as simple as swiping a contactless card on the way out of the store, without having to queue at all.

‘You won’t have to queue’

It’s not only groceries. Add a payment method to a smartphone and connected labels to anything, and we can walk out of the shop with the object of our desire in hand - and without being done for theft.

Sarah Eccleston, UK director of enterprise networks at Cisco, says: “When books are connected to the internet, and so is your smartphone with a payment capability on it, you can walk right out of Waterstones with the books you have chosen and be automatically charged. You won’t have to queue to buy them.”

You also won’t have to speak to a shop assistant, which could appeal to the reluctant and unsociable shoppers among us. British IoT company Iconeme embeds smart “beacon” technology into store displays and mannequins.

“The customer can instantly access information about the items they’re interested in and even make purchases via the retailer’s website, without waiting for a sales assistant or joining a queue,” said Iconeme co-founder and chief executive Jonathan Berlin.

The Internet of Things is set to allow shoppers to see clothes on a mannequin and order them online - no checkout queuing required. Photograph: Sarah Lee/Guardian

In other words, point your smartphone at a mannequin, find out where to try on its outfit, and then order it on an app. You can soon buy clothes without even having to speak to a human - let alone queuing for the privilege.

But if you’re not such an introvert and crave a little human interaction, shop assistants will also be touting their wares equipped with tablets, predicts John Pincott, European MD, Shopatron.

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That will let them not only provide a “frictionless” way to pay on the shop floor without queuing, but provide access to “product intelligence”, promotions, and inventory visibility, he says – a welcome change from the shoulder shrug many questions get in response. Indeed, there are no tills in Apple stores - just shop assistants who take your credit card and email the receipt to you.

Cisco has already added the death of queuing to its list Museum of Lasts – its collection of inconveniences set to be killed off by the IoT including traffic jams and missed meetings. Eccleston says we will not even have to think about what we’re buying.

“Imagine for example, that your fridge is connected to the internet, and so are the shelves in a supermarket,” she says. “When the fridge tells the supermarket you have used the last of of an item, a supermarket can start to prepare your weekly shop for you, and automatic payment can be made. So you won’t have to queue for anything - you will just need to collect it.”

Or not. Forget waiting in traffic – leave that to a self-driving car or delivery drone, which are already being developed by Amazon.

“Once the public is convinced of driverless vehicles, it is only a matter of time before even smaller vehicles or robots are permitted on roads to deliver packages – this will happen much more quickly and with less resistance than airborne drones,” says Shopatron’s Pincott. “This will make fulfilment methods such as ship-from-store, or click and collect more efficient, because point-to-point deliveries won’t require a driver.”

More boredom for shop assistants. And more surveillance?

Despite our apparent affection and respect for the art of queuing, most of us would surely welcome less of it. But there may be downsides.

The high street will become even more empty, and most of those shop assistants we’re ignoring in favour of staring at our handsets will be out of work. Plus, Professor Edwards notesanother concern, and it’s one that always comes up with the IoT: the more sensors and connected devices, the more potential for privacy invasion. “Again we’re extending this network of surveillance, but it will improve consumer satisfaction,” she says. “There’s always a tradeoff.”

Of course, blind acceptance of the surveillance state is another infamous British trait, so perhaps it can take the place of queueing in the list of what it means to be British.