Seating Chart Management for Social Distancing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Traditional automated seating reservation systems are unable to effectively account for social distancing requirements, leading to suboptimal seating arrangements and reduced confidence in the safety of attending live events, especially during communicable disease outbreaks.
Innovation Solution
A method and system for socially distant seating arrangement management that loads a seating chart into memory, sets social distancing and seat width parameters, computes the number of successive seats with combined width exceeding the distancing parameter, and enables/disables seat selection in a user interface to ensure safe spacing, accommodating group seating requests while enforcing social distancing rules across all rows.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If traditional automated seating reservation systems allocate seats to maximize occupancy, then seating capacity is optimized, but social distancing requirements cannot be met
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies different selection states (enabled/disabled) to different seats based on their local spatial relationships with other seats. Each seat's availability is determined by its specific position and distance from neighboring seats, allowing the system to locally enforce social distancing while maintaining overall high occupancy where possible.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the selection state parameter of seats based on computed social distancing parameters. By dynamically adjusting which seats are enabled or disabled for selection based on distance calculations, the system transforms a static seating chart into a dynamically controlled allocation system that meets safety requirements while maximizing capacity.
2Adaptability or versatility
If every seat is made available for selection, then seating flexibility is maximized, but social distancing cannot be enforced
Solution Approach 1:
The seating chart is segmented into enabled and disabled seats based on social distancing calculations. This segmentation divides the viewing area into safe and unsafe zones, allowing the system to provide flexible seating within safe zones while preventing selections in zones that would violate distancing requirements.
Solution Approach 2:
The system introduces an intermediary computational layer between the user's seat selection request and the actual seating chart. This intermediary calculates social distancing compliance and mediates which seats can be selected, preventing direct user access to unsafe seating arrangements while maintaining user flexibility within safe parameters.
3Reliability
If social distancing is enforced by removing every other seat or row, then safety is improved, but seating optimization is lost
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of applying a blanket restriction that removes every other seat or row, the system applies partial action by selectively disabling only those specific seats that would violate social distancing requirements. This allows maximum seating efficiency while maintaining safety, disabling only the minimum necessary seats rather than applying excessive restrictions.
Data Source
AI summary
Socially distant seating arrangement management includes loading a seating chart for a seating area of an event venue into memory of a computer, setting both a social distancing parameter and also a seat width parameter for seats in the seating area and computing a number of successive seats with a combined width according to the seat width parameter minimally exceeding the social distancing parameter. The method further includes enabling for selection in a user interface to the seating chart, available ones of the seats in a selected row of the seating area that are separated from one another by the computed number of the seats and disabling from selection in the user interface, the seats separating the available ones of the seats. Finally, the method includes recording in the memory of the computer, different selections in the seating chart by different end users of the available ones of the seats.