Think Airports Are Chaotic? You Are Right.

jonfromspace writes "Nature is running a brief, but interesting article on Chaos Theory, (as opposed to KAOS) and how it relates to that damn airport shutle service. I knew there was no way to predict arrival times with any degree of certainty. >Also worth a read is this paper on applying Chaos Theory to fisheries management."

Not to be a pedant about it,

[The Cydonian]

but the Nature article talks about airport bus frequencies, not airports per se.

The distinction is important though; when you talk of 'chaotic airports', you're talking of the entire system as a whole:- luggage screening, plane scheduling, passenger movements etc. Dr Nagatani's paper talks about none of these; it merely suggests that the reason shuttle buses (and elevators) appear to come together, or none at all, is chaos.

I can understand where Dr Nagatani is coming from on explaining bus (and elevator) frequencies, but am intrigued by why it is a "problem" (as in user-level problem, not physics problem, if you get what I mean) in the first place. Okay, so the bus comes at 09:23 and not 09:15... big deal. It is merely a matter of managing passenger perceptions.

More to the point, can anyone explain why this would be inefficient for the system as a whole?

Re:Bunching buses

[wind]

At least where I live (Brighton, UK) this appears to be exactly what the bus drivers do at peak times, at least up in the hinterlands of the residential areas. I can't tell you how many times I've waited an extra 10 minutes for the bus, only to have it speed past me with bus driver sternly shaking his head. Then the next bus comes a minute later.

Thing is, it doesn't appear to help. Usually afterwards the buses still end up next to each other. Understanding that it's due to being a chaotic system probably won't help being frustrating, but at least it's something, I guess.

Honestly, I don't drive anymore and don't really want to start again, but it's at those moments where I gain a visceral understanding of why cars are so popular. Kind of an anti-Zen moment, I guess.

Re:Bunching buses

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in Minneapolis, MN and the busses here regulate this actually. What they do is, if they are too far ahead of schedule, they have a computer on board that will tell the drivers to pull over and wait for some amount of time (provided they're in a place they can do this). The busses all have some type of GPS on board too because it will alert the drivers if they are not on a specified route. If they are behind schedule I dont know what they do in thta instance. I've never had a bus more that 5min late but I've only become semi-regular ride for about 3yrs.

Re:Bunching buses

[p3d0]

In Toronto, I have seen TTC busses leapfrog each other, presumably for exactly this reason.