Defectors take the car, cooperators go by bus

National economies are driven by the automobile, even during an economic downturn. Every day, hundreds of millions of people take their cars to visit remote places, to commute, and to reach the supermarket.

The total outlay for building roads amounts to trillions of dollars and millions of worker-hours. Miklos Szilagyi of the University of Arizona, Tucson suggests this is an apparent waste of resources, a serious producer of pollution, congestion, delays, and the fundamental reason for US dependence on foreign oil, but is mass transportation in large cities the best alternative. Should commuters take the bus rather than driving to work?

Writing in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of the Internet and Enterprise Management, Szilagyi has used a computer simulation to help answer the transport dilemma of facing large cities.

The received wisdom suggests that the answer lies with public transportation. “If there were no cars but reliable trains and buses, everyone could get anywhere quickly and without traffic jams,” says Szilagyi. His simulation greatly simplifies the issues, but works by considering each person to be cooperating if they use public transportation or defect if they selfishly choose to take their car. The decisions of all the individuals using the roads cooperatively or in defecting will accumulate over time to produce a collective order that will determine the success or failure of the transportation system.

…Szilagyi points out that the simulation reveals some of the characteristics of the well-known “game theory” game Chicken Dilemma.

EurekAlert