Which I am posting here just in case any of you are interested in such things as well.
– The Economist has some ideas about how to reduce queues at theme parks; and
– Some clever folks in Europe have developed nifty new algorithms for optimizing the use of railway networks.
Theres NO way that I can resist this … Once Upon a Time I was paid to Play with model train sets.
Way back when in the mid-1960s I was lucky enough to secure a job as a Junior technician in a School of Business and Management and in one of our classrooms ‘we’ had a train set ..the theory was that this was to teach the principles of movement and loading and …that sort of thing…and I was paid to play with it!
Years later one of our senior Academics developed various theories of Queuing that apparently absolutely required some sort of queuing simulator. This being long before the development of PCs and such like beasties.
The Department of Computing, just down the corridor from us, had an IBM main-frame Computer of colossal pretension that was lowered into their Dept after the roof had been temporarily removed .. and which machine wonderfully reflected early Dr Who/ A from Andromeda TV programs with it’s punched cards and big reels of Tape. The IBM thingy absolutely required air conditioning lest loud alarm Bells rang forth to the gratification of all techs people .. well, techs Men, really, since there weren’t very many Female tech y people way back then . They weren’t about to loan their Toy to US – can’t think why since I had watched ‘A for Andromeda ‘ and was thus eminently qualified to prod things …. and I even had a government issue white coat.
Anyway, this Queuing theory Academic required that the Dept hire a bloke whose background was in model making and who .. according to the very best theories then current .. could construct a simulation device to demonstrate queuing theory .. with Wood ..using Ball Bearings and springs and things… yep, basically it was a Giant Pin Ball machine. And yes, it did keep jambing .. but without the loud alarms and excursions that seemed to be a requirement of the School of Mathematics Big IBM beast.
Those were the days.
I wonder if they can apply algorithms to the bus. : P
I hates it.
Yay for railway optimization!
Thanks for the links!