Game Theory in Cornell (North Campus) Dining
With the start of a new fall semester, thousands of freshmen moved into the North campus. It could be a crowded period when all the students Entering the same public area at the same time. Indeed, it was, especially for this year. The North Campus Residential Expansion (NCRE) project, aimed to provide a more consistent support on students’ residential life, added about 2,000 more beds on the North campus. Also, the new policy now requires all the freshmen and sophomores to live on campus, which further increases the population of the North campus.
However, there is only one additional dining hall, Morrison Dining, that claimed to have the capacity to accommodate 1,000 students. This year, the NCRE project is fully completed, and it is the first time that the dining halls have faced such a high student flow. When the school started, everyone went to the dining hall based on their usual mealtime at home, which was basically at the same time. Therefore, it became super crowded.
This becomes a situation where game theory can be applied. In this case, each student can choose when they are going (e.g., Morrison, Appel, or none) and when they are going. To reduce the waiting time, students started to change their “strategy”. There are some people who choose to go super early or super late, or there are people who stick with their original time. Gradually, students started to change their mealtime to avoid the peak period, and the mean waiting time had been largely shortened.