←back to thread

The waiting time paradox: why is my bus always late? (2018)

(jakevdp.github.io)
219 points skadamat | 1 comments | 20 Aug 24 13:55 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
magicalhippo ◴[20 Aug 24 15:23 UTC] No.41300901[source]▶
Ah, but it's on time those times you are late but really need to get that one departure for some important meeting or similar.

edit: interesting post with a different ending than I imagined.

Been thinking about using some statistical methods to give me some better estimates of the busses I take to work. Like "given that it's $today, which is a Tuesday, it's 17:30, and the display says the bus is 7 minutes delayed, how long til it will actually come?

replies(1): >>41301048 #
jeffbee ◴[20 Aug 24 15:40 UTC] No.41301048[source]▶
> some statistical methods

Anything would be better than what we have. When I studied NextBus predictions for the SF Muni 1-California line I found that the predicted arrival time was not even correlated with the actual arrival time. If they had taken all the radios and computers out of the system and just showed a random number as the minutes to arrival that would have been every bit as good as NextBus.

replies(2): >>41301366 #>>41302975 #
1. dontlikeyoueith ◴[20 Aug 24 16:16 UTC] No.41301366[source]▶
> If they had taken all the radios and computers out of the system and just showed a random number as the minutes to arrival that would have been every bit as good as NextBus.

Bold of you to assume they hadn't already done that.

Remember, lowest bidder wins the contract.