Running to the subway — irrational or not?
Dan,
My son (9 years) and I are huge fans of yours.
We have both read your book and gotten hours of pleasure discussing your experiments with friends and family.
My son came up with an interesting example of irrationality I would like to share with you: Every morning, I take him to school via subway from downtown Manhattan to the Upper Westside. We take the D train to Columbus Circle then switch to the 1 train headed uptown. He noticed that when switching, we leave the D train, walk to the 1 train platform, and then if we see that the train is there or just arriving, we immediately start running to catch the train. Well, it occurred to my son that it would be a lot more rational if, instead, we always ran from the D train to the 1 train platform and if, when we get there, we see that there is no train coming or already there, we slow down to a walk. So instead of walking then running, it would be more rational to run then walk. In the long run, we would save more time with this behavior even though it would seem counterintuitive to do it this way.
We would be curious what you think of this example.
With best regards,
AW
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Dear AW,
First I am delighted that you have been reading my book with your son. This is a true compliment. Thanks.
As for your question: Your son is right. If you want to minimize travel time you should switch your running pattern. But I suspect that your running pattern (walk first and run later) is aimed at minimizing regret and not at optimizing your time, which is very common.
Here’s one way to think about this human glitch we call regret: Consider how unhappy you would be if you missed your flight connection at O’Hare airport and had to wait five hours for the next plane home (enjoying, of course, the many amenities and wonderful atmosphere of this particular airport). Now consider two versions of this scenario. In the first, you missed your connection by two hours. In the second, you missed your connection by two minutes. Which scenario would make you more upset? My guess, as well as my personal experience, suggests that missing the connection by two minutes would annoy you much more and, in fact, would cloud your entire trip. But here is the strange thing—in both cases you would be physically stuck in the charmless airport.
The reality of the situation is not what would influence your happiness—because the reality is the same in both scenarios—instead, your happiness would be influenced by the ease of imagining another reality. A reality in which you made it to the flight.
So your son is right. If you want to minimize your travel time the best thing is to run first, but if you just care about minimizing regret keep on with your current practice.
Irrationally yours,
Dan
Sometimes it is rational to run for a train when you see it coming.
1) The average person wants to save time. He would not run to save the time saved by running alone. But would run to save a higher amount of time.
When one has no information about the expected time of the train, the expected saved time is equal to time saved form running alone. He should not run – we do not run in midday to save time.
But when we see the train is about to come, the expected time saving from running is different from the time saved alone, because one has good chance to save the whole waiting period between trains. It dependents on various parameters, but many times it will be more than the time saved alone.
Therefore, when we observe the train is about to come, the expected time saving can be bigger.
Hello Dan,
Correct me if I’m missing the point but, it seems to me like another parameter is what we consider as the ideal train trip.
The ideal way to take the train is to have a timing between train 1 and train 2 which allows you to walk relax between the 2 train platforms.
if we start running just in case the train arrived earlier, we just make sure we never experience this ideal train trip… which makes me think that the walk-then-run approach is more rational than the run-just-in-case-then-walk one
Regards,
Sébastien
Out of scope :
Hey Dan, I’m also a big fan of your work, but I still didn’t get to read your book because I bought it in a silly Adobe format without carefully reading the ‘terms and agreements’.
Since I have no Windows computer, I just can’t get to read it
I’m not blaming you for this, but can you just tell me if there is anything I can do to convert this adobe digital edition format to something usable ?
Hi Sébastien,
What a shame with the format. Can you tell me where you got it? Maybe there is a return policy?
This is very odd and frustrating.
The question for you is: are you looking at the wasted investment as a sunk cost and is this causing you not to get a book that you expect to enjoy?
best
Dan
In the long run, when our commute is the same every day, the average wait is the time between two trains divided by 2.
By running when we see a train and catch it, we only make the average time decrease by a very small amount of time. This amount can be compared to the one saved by running just-in-case before approaching the platform.
Running in the platform is then like running in the street and it makes no sense to do it unless we enjoy running. Only where the frequency is very high would the average time be modified substantially, but then if the frequency is high waiting for the next train is not too bad.
But here is the irrational choice: Most of us run more times in the platform than we do in the street, even if this is dangerous and probably bad for us.
So AW’s son alternative would save more time because it involves more running. It would probably not make sense to do this either, but his creative thinking is very inspiring!
Let me know your thoughts, please. I may be wrong!
Take care,
Xavi
AW,
a question or two before I weigh in. how often does the D train run? how about the 1 train? What time does your son’s school start? How long does it take to walk from your home to train D’s platform?
Sébastien,
Adobe makes there reader for a plethora of different platofmrs including, Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris, AIX, Palm Os, Symbian, and HP-UX, so you should be able to read the book on pretty much any platform. (assuming of course you ahve a computer, although if you don’t I have to wonder why you bought an ebook in the first place)
Hello,
I bought the book at ebooks.com
I must confess that I wasn’t aware of these limitations and I skipped reading all the text before clicking on ‘checkout’ because I was expecting a standard PDF file.
As Jim said, Adobe does have support for all kind of OSes but they still have an unsolved issue with supporting Leopard (last OSX version from Apple); and, unfortunately I’m running Leopard.
http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.3c054d0f
But, anyways, Dan, you’re right, I’m a bit stubbern but this shouldn’t keep me from reading a book which I expect to be source of pleasure.
I’ll give up on my 20 bucks but I won’t give up reading it in a digital format. Could you point me to a good online store where I could get the book in a more standard format ?
Thanks,
Sébastien
Dear AW
Would it be easier to leave the house a little earlier and catch the earlier train? (gaining more time with your son)so the walk is more relaxed and chatting is easier
In addition to the regret angle that Dan describes, I think there’s also an aversion to waste. If we always run, we run the risk that we exerted ourself for no reason. But if we see the train coming, we know that there’s a reason to run, so we’re not wasting our efford.
Or maybe it’s just laziness — we don’t want to do extra work if we don’t have to.
I know that switch fairly well. Depending on where you came off the train, it’s a long time before you can see the 1 train. In which case, if your goal is to arrive as soon as possible, running is always the preference. (The effort is the same, and the power difference presents a health benefit–VERY marginal, but not zero.)
The question is what to do when your goal is another connexion with a more stable schedule (e.g., LIRR/NJ Transit/Metro-North). If you have thirty minutes to get to Penn Station from 59th Street and decided to switch from the D–it’s raining and you don’t want to walk the block from 6th Avenue–then there’s no intrinsic reason to run. You end up waiting either in Penn Station or on the downtown 59th Street subway platform.
Similarly, if you have no compensation in the morning for arriving five-ish minutes earlier, what reason is there to run in the first place?