Dr. David Bernstein, 17 September 2007
Calculus for the Morning Commute

ABSTRACT: In the United States, the mean commute-to-work time is about 25 minutes. In my opinion, rather than wasting this 100 hours per year listening to music, commuters should spend it studying calculus. (They can listen to music on the commute home if they want.)

Unfortunately, I have been unable to convince many commuters of the efficacy of this idea. As a result, I have, instead, turned my attention to developing models of commuter behavior that can be used by transportation planners to evaluate policies/projects of various kinds.

In this talk I will show what happens when everyone uses Google Maps, MapQuest, or a GPS navigation system to find the best route to work, and discuss why such a situation can not persist. I will then discuss equilibrium models of commuter route-choice behavior and show how calculus can be used to consider the existence, uniqueness, stability, and calculation of equilibria.





BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: David Bernstein is a Professor of Computer Science at James Madison University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and his B.A. from SUNY Binghamton. Before coming to JMU, Prof. Bernstein was a member of the faculty at Princeton University and at MIT, was the Director of Research at Atlantic Commodities, and the Vice President/Software Development at Investment Technologies. He has been on the editorial board of the Journal of Regional Science, Operations Research, Transportation Science, and Networks and Spatial Economics, and has worked on consulting projects in North America, South America, Africa, and Asia.