Terminal access and load management

A method, comprising:

• maintaining a customer count for customers present within a store from video;
• obtaining staff identifiers for staff working at the store;
• obtaining transaction performance metrics associated with each staff identifier;
• tracking first customers from the customers that are waiting in lanes of checkout terminals for checkouts;
• calculating expected wait times for second customers that are approaching the lanes based on a total number of the first customers at each lane and the corresponding transaction performance metrics for first staff identifiers associated with first staff of the staff that is operating at least some of the checkout terminals;
• displaying the expected wait times per lane on monitors when the second customers approach or are adjacent to any of the lanes;
• maintaining current transaction performance metrics for the first staff members as checkouts are processed at the checkout terminals;
• and
• updating the transaction performance metrics for the first staff members with the current transaction performance metrics.

A system, comprising:

• cameras configured to capture images within a store;
• transaction terminals configured to perform checkouts from the store;
• a server that includes a processor and a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising executable instructions representing a terminal load manager;
• the terminal load manager when executed by the processor from the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium configured to cause the processor to perform processing comprising:
• tracking a total number of customers in a queue for the checkouts per transaction terminal from the images captured by the cameras;
• tracking a total number of items possessed by each customer from the images;
• obtaining transaction performance metrics for operators of each of the transaction terminals, wherein the transaction performance metrics represent historical transaction performance for each of the operators;
• predicting an expected wait time for entering each of the queues based on the total number of the customers per queue, the total number of items per customer, and the transaction performance metrics per operator;
• sending a notification to a second operator that instructs the second operator to open a closed transaction terminal for assisting in the checkouts based on a shortest expected wait time selected from the expected wait times approaching a threshold wait time;
• displaying on monitors adjacent to the transaction terminals the expected wait time for each of the transaction terminals;
• maintaining current transaction performance metrics for the operators as checkouts are processed at the transaction terminals;
• and
• updating the transaction performance metrics for the operators with the current transaction performance metrics.