Where to park your car, according to math
phys.org
phys.org
1) no need to worry about someone pulling out in front of me or pedestrians or carts hitting my car 2) I’m at a desk all day. A couple minutes walk every time I park adds up to count as exercise
On the rare occasion where I need to minimize walking (because I have something heavy to carry, for example) I park to minimize walking even if I have to waste some time and fuel doing it. In that case it helps me when other people use my default strategy.
Optimization-theory work like this paper has a fundamental flaw: it assumes the actor is a classic "econ" -- the ideal person (defined by classical economics) working to optimize purely personal utility. In fact, many people work to optimize community utility.
Studying that community-optimization model is harder. But it is probably worthwhile. Such large-scale systems as autonomous vehicles will require community optimization to succeed.
It's time to reread Kahneman and Tversky, and Richard Thaler.
I actively want the exercise. I take the stairs at work rather than the elevator when practical for the same reason.
I don't think it's fair to categorise being a decent person as "meek". If more people did that, we'd have a far lower need for things like disabled and family spaces because people would fill inwards.
But the social-science and system-science issues get confused by using ethically charged words like "decent." Modeling "decent" gets confusing without ways of measuring it. (I'll spare us a long digression on how slippery it can be to understand ethical / moral reasoning.)
Do I leave parking spots for other people because I'm a "decent" person? I like to think so -- I like to think I put others' needs ahead of my own when I can -- but that's my business. From a systems point of view I do it to help control parking lot congestion.
If I were a business owner and didn't leave convenient parking spots for others, I'd be deliberately adding to congestion near my business. That's a cost. What's the benefit?
Example: Van Jacobson's slow-start / exponential-backoff algorithm to help prevent TCP endpoints from saturating routers. It's certainly possible to explain this to a roomful of undergrads as a "be nice" requirement on web servers and other sources of large TCP streams. But it's more productive to model it as part of a large-scale system to control congestion.
The naive answer is 1/e (where e is the base of the natural logarithm). If you have N applications, reject ~N/e applications and choose the first applicant who is better than every previous applicant.
The analogous secretary problem would be to be presented with a sequence of increasingly suitable candidates, but never knowing whether each candidate is the last one.
In the carpark I park in, I often just speed down to the level where there first begins to be car spaces and I can often get much closer to the stairs which lead back up to the exit on the ground floor.
Extra vertical distance is only 4-5m but saved horizontal distance can be 50m.
Indeed, for the walking component. However having to drive up and then back down additional levels has time and hassle costs too.
I do often wonder why people are so lazy or so busy that saving on walking an extra few yards is so important to them?
My theory as to why this happens is that a parked car is a clearer indicator of how to park properly. If I try to park properly using the painted lines (which are often not very visible and go out of sight when you start entering your parking spot) I might miss the mark. However, a parked car that's more visible is a better indicator of whether I've parked correctly.
Walking through parking lot is not ideal. If it's outside, then you need to be dressed out for walking outside (and be prepared for rain etc. when coming back). When it's inside, it can smell of fumes and not neccesarily be very safe.
Being able to find your car when you leave.
Minimizing exit time when leaving an event where everyone gets out at the same time.
Being able to see the whole (or enough of the) lot upon entering-- so you don't have to guess.
"However, if there a few meek drivers while the majority follow the prudent or optimistic strategy, then the meek strategy is not bad because meek drivers will park a distance λ from the target."
I am a 'meek' driver for this very reason. My assumption is that the majority of other drivers are either 'optimistic' or 'prudent,' and as such the parking cost of the meek strategy is much lower. Would be very interesting to test this in the real world!
I haven't kept a tally, but there have been multiple times (after a few earlier experiences on the other end of the spectrum) where I've gotten the last spot on the far end of the lot, only to see the few cars ahead of me drive around and eventually end up going off to another lot.
In my case I'm the meek driver on a micro/lot level, but a prudent/optimistic one on a macro/workplace level. But in my anecdata it's probably saved me more time than any other behavior I could employ.
Unless it's pouring rain, I'll usually park near the back of the lot and take my time walking to the store. Even if it's raining, I won't usually opt for the spots closest to the store. I don't know _why_ that latter behavior exists, but it's what I do.
https://www.santafe.edu/news-center/news/where-how-park-your...
e.g. Park further away if you can handle it (arrived on time, and are in good health, and have little luggage). Then people who are struggling (arrived late, with kids, in poor health, with lots of luggage) have a higher chance to find a space closer to the entrance. This might invisibly make someone have a less shitty day, and reduce my own risk of running into an angry person later. It's more impactful to optimise for that, rather than save seconds of walking.
Any ideas for how to math this?
Because, if you try to occupy the very first spot available, then of course it makes very little sense. But I believe that a "human meek" would instead skip the whole line of unoccupied spaces and take the last spot in such a line. This "unoccupied line" does not even have to begin with the first parking space, but for example with the third. Though you need to assume that the line of empty spots is in driver's line of sight.
I feel like the people trying to park right near the door/entrance to the shops are not "optimising" the time they're there - I feel like they're probably just being lazy and "optimising" for the smallest amount of energy exertion possible (consciously or not). After all, why walk when you have a car? They don't seem to mind spending time following people walking back to their cars, or just looping around and around, or trying to squeeze into spaces that are too small when it is clearly obvious that you can just pull straight into a space another 20-30m away without any waiting or tight squeezes, then spend 15-30 seconds more walking. They're wasting a lot more time trying to get close so it can't be time they are optimising for otherwise people wouldn't do it.
(some people of course can't walk distance but then there are disabled spaces, parent + child spaces etc)
I admit that at certain times I do enter from the furthest entrance...and I always drive past the first spot, and bet on that second one. Quite often there is a better spot as I'm walking in, but sometimes there's not. So when faced with the opportunity, I follow the prudent strategy.
Now at an unfamiliar location (walmart, movie theater, whatever), I always try to find a spot that butts up against a curb (preferably on one side AND the back of the spot as well) to lessen exposure of my vehicle to other motorists (doors, bumpers) as much as possible.
This assumes you can identify a common value function everyone (or most people) places on each space of course.
Making people follow the value function in increasing order - as in the example, where each space you pass is closer to the entrance and so ‘better’ - seems to force this strategy choice.
This suggests all kinds of analogies in user experience and organizational and game design problems...
With that in mind, I usually opt to carry the grocery out myself because I prefer it. But rationally, the cost disappears because of the option.
Choose spot closest to entry-exit path of car park. Park closer to exit, and so that you don't need to reverse out, minimize inefficient slow/idle movement with cold engine.
And any additional walking is a bonus as mentioned by several people here.