Commuter’s Dilemma
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/magazine/14ideas-section01-t-008.html
In large urban areas or universities, cars and bikes are not utilized by the majority of the commuting population. In fact, most of these commuters choose either one of two choices; the wearisome yet flexible choice to walk to or from their destination or the more idle yet strict decision to wait for public transportation, be it subway or bus. Many students have probably had to make a choice in a situation similar to this wait/walk predicament with varying degrees of urgency. Under less urgent conditions, commuters are less likely to stress about which strategy is ‘better’ (could be which option renders the commuter less exhausted or brings the commuter to his destination the fastest). However, when rushing to work or an early class, I personally find myself wondering if there could be a better way to approach the situation rather than using life’s ultimate plan of chance.
Harvard alums Kominers, Chen, and Sinnott apply the game theory dilemma to the bus wait situation in order to determine once and for all what the dominant strategy would be for each commuter, with the corresponding strategies to be to either wait for the bus or to walk. In the end, they discovered that the dominant strategy would be to wait for the bus. Intuitively, it makes a lot of sense, as there is a high likelihood that if you change your and decide to walk, that the bus, a much faster mode of transportation, will catch up to you at some point. Moreover, there is a practical problem with walking as people tend to pause near each bus stop, waiting to see if any buses pass by on their route and unintentionally elongating their travel time and exhausting their efforts if no such magic bus stops by at the short time they decide to wait at each stop.
Of course, there are many other considerations and factors that could actually affect the success of the bus waiting strategy, including traffic and short distances. Furthermore, there could potentially be a third and possible better strategy for commuters to walk and then wait at the next stop. However, as long as the cases are not too extreme, then the bus waiting strategy holds up decently well, as buses are sufficiently punctual and most journeys are not exactly short. And as a plus, waiting at a bus stop and sitting on the ride could optimize the commuter’s time to do work that he could not otherwise do if he chose to walk.