Transportation Library News
October 28, 2009
Late by Design
The Operations Room, a blog written by two professors at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, has a recent entry with this title about a New York Times article on the intentional lateness of commuter trains in New York City. According to the article, the trains depart New York City terminals one minute late, but arrive on time at all other stops.
The blog entry notes:
" Beyond the sheer anecdotal value of this fact, there are a few interesting issues here: First, This one-minute is basically the safety buffer the trains' system carries to improve service in its largest market. In order to reduce the number of people that are late to their trains, the conductors wait another minute and recover this minute later by driving faster (I guess). Second, we usually associate operations with improving efficiency, but this is a good example, I think, of intentional inefficiency, targeted at improving service."
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The title of the entry should be "Late by Design." "A recent entry with this title" in the first sentence should be a link to
