Comment by lefra

Kind of like airplane boarding. The ideal algorithm would be to make people board from back to front, and from window to aisle. However, people are not disciplined enough to strictly sort themselves, they won't all take the same time to sit, and some people want to board together (family with children for example).

Apparently, the fastest known way to fill up a plane in real-life conditions is to let people board in random order, without pre-assigning a seat.