Sunday 7 July 2013

Wedding Anniversary and Travel optimization

Today is our one-year wedding anniversary and we will be celebrating it by putting together a wardrobe for our bedroom and going out to eat. Nothing brings two people closer like putting together IKEA furniture...

Anywho, in other news; Matte and I were discussing the pay-off of traveling when considering changing modes of transport and total time spent travelling in public transport.

Let's assume that all distances have no monetary cost difference. That is to say travelling by one mode of transport from A to B costs exactly the same as changing mode of transport several times and traveling from A to C to D etc to B. This is the case when travelling with a monthly boarding pass within the city boundaries. Let us also assume people don't enjoy travelling and nor do the enjoy changing modes of transport. What aspects would once have to consider to create a good goal function?

In layman terms, will a person choose to travel a certain route from A to B if the total travel time is longer but there are less changes of mode of transport? Which aspects will effect the person's decision?

Some of the thoughts Matte and I had that would effect the decision was:

Risk
How long time is there between the changes?
Is there a chance of missing one of the changes?
How often do the transport come if you do miss a step of the way? Is it every half hour or every 5 minutes?

Regularity
Is it a one-off trip or one that is done regularly? Will a one-off trip be more sensitive to changes or not?

Total time
Is the total trip time short or long? Will a 5 minute increase in the time be weighted more on the 15 minute trip than the 1 hour trip?

Number of changes
Is each increase in the number of changes weighted the same? Is an increase from 0 to 1 weighted more than from 1 to 2?

I'm itching to create some optimization functions now...Anyone else have ideas of what could effect the decisions?

Lastly is a short video of 2 people zorbing. I couldn't get anyone to film us when we rolled down so this video will have to do. As you can hardly see the people in the ball, you can imagine it is Matte and I :)





1 comment:

  1. What types of transport is used? Train, bus, subway? Someone might prefer train over bus etc.
    Amount of passengers - will you have the possibility to sit and read, or will you have to stand?

    ReplyDelete