Thursday, May 14, 2015

Optimization in real life

Here is a real life optimization problem I faced in the US.

We flew into Newark NJ and were planning to stay with Rujuta's brother who lives near Baltimore for day before taking a 6 am flight to the west coast from Baltimore airport.

I hired a one way rental from EWR to BWI and planned to drop it off at BWI an hour before my flight. My brother in law thought I was cutting it too thin because the car rental return at BWI is a few miles away and they have a shuttle bus to the airport with a frequency and reliability that he did not quite trust especially in the early hours.

He suggested we return the rental car the night before and then he would drop us to the airport to catch our flight. I thought that would be too may trips to the airport.

Was there a more efficient way to do this?

1 comment:

Ali said...

2 possible solutions

First one
What if your brother-in-law drove with you (you in your rental) in the morning?

You remove the uncertainty of the shuttle. Also, if it's early enough, traffic wouldn't be a risk either.

You save the return trip to the rental agency near the airport.

This of course has the potential awkwardness of having to drive to the airport in two cars.

Second one
Find a branch of the rental agency closer to your brother-in-law's house.