Analyzing Three Different Parking Strategies to Determine Which Is Most Likely to Be Successful

Physicists Paul Krapivsky of Boston University and Sidney Redner of the Santa Fe Institute conducted an interesting experiment. They analyzed three different parking strategies – meek, prudent and optimistic – in order to determine which is most likely to be successful. The meek strategy is to park wherever a spot presents itself, the prudent strategy is to park in the first available space as close to the destination as possible and the optimistic strategy is try to find a spot right up front and then backtrack towards an open spot.

e investigate simple strategies that embody the decisions that one faces when trying to park near a popular destination. Should one park far from the target (destination), where finding a spot is easy, but then be faced with a long walk, or should one attempt to look for a desirable spot close to the target, where spots may be hard to find?

via Miss Cellania