personal space

can I measure it?
task: do measure it. a metric measurement device might be hard to use. maybe not hard but odd. what if I ask for permission from the person standing in front of me to measure it? I can do a guess, or measure it with non-metric devices. like the number of ceramic tiles between us.
that would be my approximate sense of distance in britain context.
then i should measure the others, how much space they leave between them when they que.
there should be some parameters setting this distance:
where you are waiting: indoor outdoor? is it a packed space?
what is the aim of queing? to withdraw money? people might leave extra space between each other if it is a atm que.
the level of conscious of the quer? (is there such a word first of all?) does drunkenness affect the queing practice?
...
i might also look at the way people sit in the library, when they are studying.