Thursday, November 24, 2005

A Scheme For Numbering Bus Routes

A SCHEME TO EMBED ROUTE-INFORMATION
IN BUS-ROUTE NUMBERS

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"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,
"it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."
- Lewis Carroll, Through The Looking Glass

"But what about,” I asked him, “bus-route numbers?”.
- TJC



Abstract

The need for a more meaningful scheme for numbering bus-routes in cities is explained and a scheme suitable for this purpose is detailed in this paper. The proposed scheme entails the assignment of numbers to the station and the utilization of the multiplicative properties of the numbers to embed route-information in the route numbers in an efficient manner.


1 - INTRODUCTION
-----------------------------------

A numbering scheme for public buses is essential if a city has a lot of people of different origin, who speak different languages natively. The numbering of buses according to the routes that they service helps a great deal when you don't know how to read the favoured local language.

Democracy, the preferred ideology of this age, is about suiting the majority. If the majority of the local population can read the language, writing the names of the places enroute in that language will be very useful indeed. But the minority of the non-readers should not be neglected either; the route number should still be present, the number being their only cue. Democracy is also about the right of the minority to equality. The situation should be win-win-for-all, where possible.

1.1 Limitations of present schemes

The route numbers for buses, however, seem to be chosen arbitrarily or through an arcane and abstruse scheme. It is biased to suit the operators' convenience more than the passengers'. Ease of administration and maintenance seems to be the driving (excuse the pun) force behind the numbering of the routes.

For example, all that may be common to Buses 361, 362 and 363 may be that they start from the same location. This would not be very helpful for a person standing at that location, clueless as to how to choose from one of the buses at the station!

Very little conclusively useful information can be obtained from a route number. Numbers are used almost like names, meaningless. Such a scheme may be termed a number-as-name scheme.

1.2 Socio-economic impact

Any numbering scheme can be easily implemented by the bus-service operators or company. That being the case, the numbering scheme chosen must be as advantageous to the passenger as possible. A bus-service is, after all, intended as a service to the passengers.

Now, even if the chosen scheme is complex, the operators will eventually adapt to its complexity. A bus-service is, after all, a business too. And in a business, the customer is king. But this scenario will not arise: a scheme easily understood by the passengers will, necessarily, be easy for the operators as well.

A simple, intuitive numbering scheme would be helpful not only for the local-language-ignorant passengers but also for other linguistically challenged people like dyslexics and illiterates (they might be good with numbers). It would also encourage the use of the public transport mechanism; many a time, it is for want of a bus number that we take a cab. We can also eliminate the need for the names of the enroute stations to be written on the bus, as the scheme would be easily usable for the natives also.

2 - PRIME-MULTIPLICATIVE ROUTE NUMBERING
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2.1 Requirement:
A passenger, may not be familiar with the local language, has to be able to correctly decide whether a bus goes where he wants to go.

2.2 Assumption:
A passenger has basic knowledge of mathematics and numbers .

2.3 Base Scheme:
1. Assign each station a prime number. 2, 3 , 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37...
2. Enumerate the stations on the bus-route.
3. The product of the prime numbers denoting the stations enroute, is used as the route number.

2.4 Sufficiency:
Since each station is assigned a prime number, a route number will be unique. The passenger who knows the number of his destination can determine whether a given bus will go to his destination by checking whether the bus-number is divisible by the number of his destination.

3 - CRITIQUE
------------------------


3.1 Learning Curve

A question regarding the ease of learnability of the destination-numbers can be raised. The number can be displayed at all bus-stops, the passenger can make a note of it when he gets down if he thinks he will need to go there frequently.

A passenger will find it easier to remember the set of numbers representing his possible destinations than the numbers of all the buses going there. The number of numbers that a passenger will need to remember in this scheme is less by a multiplicative factor than in number-as-name schemes.

3.2 Length Of Route Numbers

The readily observable and noticed space on a bus is limited; the number of characters required for route-representation is an important criterion. The route numbers must be displayed prominently and they should also be easily analyzable.

Some of the route numbers if we use a purely prime-multiplicative scheme will be very long and too complex for an average individual to quickly analyze with his destination-key.

3.2.1 An alternative:
Let us consider a linear scheme in which we could assign numbers (needn't be prime) to the stations and we string together the numbers for the stations as the route number. On the face of it, this seem to be simpler than the prime-multiplicative scheme. But there could be problems interpreting a linear route number. For example, 123 could be interpreted as 1-2-3 , 12-3 or 1-23. But, if we include the dashes in the route number for clarity, the route number will be unnecessarily bloated; the dashes adding to the length. This would result in route numbers like 1-2-3-4-15-16-21. In the prime-multiplicative scheme such a number would probably be smaller, in terms of the number of characters required to represent it.

3.2.2 Adapting the prime-multiplicative scheme:
Through judicious and intelligent choices, the length of the route number can be minimized. Some approaches are mentioned below -

a) Use of smaller numbers for stations that are on busier routes. In fact, if all of the buses pass a station, that needn't have a number at all!

b) In the case that all buses passing through a station A come from another station B, the square of B's code can be used for A and so on. This would mean just multiplication with B's code instead of with another prime number which would have been larger.

c) A hybrid combination of the linear and multiplicative schemes may be essential for very large cities. In case the resulting route number is too big, and only then, it can be decomposed into two smaller, more manageable numbers. The passenger can decide whether the bus goes to a destination if either is divisible by the destination-key.

In the opinion of this author, upto a pair of four digit numbers would be quickly analyzable. In most cases, it should be possible to manage with smaller pairs.

d) Colour-coding of the buses and division of cities into sub-areas are also possibilities. But this should be done only if absolutely necessary, as it destroys the uniformity and simplicity of the scheme and creates confusion.

4 - CONCLUSION
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A bus-route numbering scheme based on prime-multiplicative encoding can be used, after suitable modifications and adaptation to location-specific peculiarities, for embedding route-information into bus-route numbers in an efficient manner.

A limitation of this scheme is that some of the route-numbers could be unmanageably long - some of the possible workarounds have been explained - but there should be no problem implementing the scheme for at least the most important locations of a city.

The implementation of this or a similar route-information-encoding scheme for bus-numbering would be beneficial.

-Thomas Jay Cubb

Monday, November 21, 2005

Queuriest - IV

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QUEURIEST - IV
Keep Guessing! --- Johnnie Guesser
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1. Merry X-mas folks (belated) ! But tell me, why is it X in X-mas? C-mas would've been better abbreviations for Christmas, right? What's the story? ------ The question, in short, is : Y X?
*

2.If it is Dr. Watson for Sherlock Holmes, who is it for Hercule Poirot?
*

3.George Orwell's 1984 gave us the terms Big Brother, doublespeak etc. What was 'the ultimate' torture room in the novel called?
*

4.Absolute sitter this one. Which fabric literally means `cloth of the king'? Work it out!
*

5.Eminently guessable one. Which rock star named himself (or/and his band) after a 17th century witch? Maybe you gotta be eighteen to answer this one. . .
*

6. How would most of us better know a virgule as?
*

7. What is the claim to fame of two people called Dismas and Gestas? For Christ's sake, don't google on this one...
*

8. Elementary question! Name the only elements that exist as liquids at 0C (zero degree celsius). Clue: There are words derived from them in the English language. Calling Mr.Webster?....
*

9. It's all Greek to me! Who was killed by Zeus after Pluto complained to him that Hades was getting underpopulated?
*

10.Which four-letter word did Dr. Seuss coin in his 1950 book "If I Ran the Zoo"? Do not search excessively, you just might become one! ;-p
*

-----------------------------------------------------------------
********* Bonus Q for no points:*********
**Gimme a word with the sequence `uqu' in it.
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From: "SonOfDelphi"
Date: Fri Dec 27, 2002 9:05 pm
Subject: Queuriest - IV

hi everybody!

Here's the fourth edition of Queuriest.

Hope this edition gets more responses than the previous one (if that is possible!). Get the answers straight from the heart (or wherever it is that you keep ur facts ;-) No WYSWIG (=what you search is what i get) please. Gimme what you got. Make me happy...flood me with replies!

answers in a week's time. get cracking!!!

luv
thomas


ANSWERS
--------------

hi folks!

pretty good response to the quiz. there were 25 responses in all. was expecting more though...(never get enuff of you!) :-) what with more responses to the previous edition.

were the clues too obvious? that's what put some of u off? don't want no more clues? questions too easy? tell me when u answer to Queuriest-V.

the answers follow...

luv
thomas


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QUEURIEST - IV
Keep Guessing! --- Johnnie Guesser
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1. Merry X-mas folks (belated) ! But tell me, why is it X in X-mas? C-mas would've been better abbreviations for Christmas, right? What's the story? ------ The question, in short, is : Y X?
*X looks similar to the greek alphabet chi,which in greek is the first letter in the name Christ, Chi was used to represent the name Christ ,so christmas=chimas or Xmas

2.If it is Dr. Watson for Sherlock Holmes, who is it for Hercule Poirot?
*Captain Arthur Hastings
I think the Poirot short-stories were almost knocking-copies of the SH stories...personal opinion. everything corresponds
to the Advs of SH&W. Novels pretty good though.

3.George Orwell's 1984 gave us the terms Big Brother, doublespeak etc. What was 'the ultimate' torture room in the novel called?
* Room 101 is what the torture room was called.
When Winston Smith was taken there, he got rats. It contained ur worst fears, whatever that was. His was rats.
GB: Room 101. Where your ultimate personal nightmare is given shape?

4.Absolute sitter this one. Which fabric literally means `cloth of the king'? Work it out!
*Corduroy was what I was expecting. CORD DU ROI
But many of you came up with rexine, working the rex part superbly. Good work but points only for corduroy as rexine is not cloth, just a leather-substitute.

5.Eminently guessable one. Which rock star named himself (or/and his band) after a 17th century witch? Maybe you gotta be eighteen to answer this one. . .
Alice Cooper. the clue had something to do with AC's song Eighteen. among the world's first shock-rockers...white makeup, lipstick etc onstage

6. How would most of us better know a virgule as?
* Slash, the "/", forward slash more precisely.
AV said: comma. in French. FYI puan is a fullstop, and Puan-Virgule, a semicolon.
QM:what would a backslash be called, i wonder . . .

7. What is the claim to fame of two people called Dismas and Gestas? For Christ's sake, don't google on this one...
* These are the people (thieves) who were crucified along with Jesus Christ. The clue was a dead giveaway I guess.
Most of you got it right.Assignment for u: who was on the left and who was on the right?

8. Elementary question! Name the only elements that exist as liquids at 0C (zero degree celsius). Clue: There are words derived from them in the English language. Calling Mr.Webster?....
* Bromine & Mercury
Not too many got both right.

9. It's all Greek to me! Who was killed by Zeus after Pluto complained to him that Hades was getting underpopulated?
* Aesculapius, who was bringing people back to life. Zeus afraid that it would violate the exclusivity of the Gods' immortality, strikes him down with thunderbolt as some versions have it.
BJ complained:MAJOR MISTAKES IN THE QUESTION #1 Zeus- Greek (=Jupiter in Roman) and Pluto- Roman #2 Hades-God of the underworld in Greek mythology (NOT greek for hell!!)
QM:well, Hades IS the name for the Greek underworld as well as the god, as you mentioned. It was named so after the god, I think.And...Pluto, as you mentioned, is Roman but Hade's (the god's) equivalent. I used Pluto just to avoid the confusion between the god and the place. And one more thing,Hades(the place) is not hell: it is the abode of the dead, not a place of punishment like Hell.. . .well, maybe the question would've been better framed as ...Hades complained that the Underworld was...? anyways...

10.Which four-letter word did Dr. Seuss coin in his 1950 book "If I Ran the Zoo"? Do not search excessively, you just might become one! ;-p
*Nerd
Many of you came up with geek which was pretty good work i thought. A lot of other 4-letter words also did come up. . .

-----------------------------------------------------------------
********* Bonus Q for no points:*********
**Gimme a word with the sequence `uqu' in it.
Not too many attempted this, bouquet was the only one that turned up. i guess that's the only word. my anagrammer dug out these obscure words from my comp dictionary:albuquerque,bouquet, chautauqua,chibouque,dubuque,duque,duquesne, ololiuqui, ololiuquis, ottauquechee,tuque. But none of these seem to be 'normal' words. Strange, considering that words with 'uq' would also be the same, since q is always followed by u! Is bouquet the only real word?
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The scores (in chronological order):

1. Ravikiran Rao - 3.5 ( not 205 sorry, .5 for Hg)
2. Aishwariya V - 4 (the French connection!)
3. Debashree Mitra - 6.5 (good going)
4. Vaidyanathan - 7 (great show boss)
5. Dinesh Krothivasan - 6.5 (thanx for the comps)
6. Mamatha Baloo - 3 (roll the dice sometimes)
7. Ramkumar Shankar - 3 (geek was good)
8. Venkateshwar - (but having major fun though!)
9. Abhinandan LN - 7 (100%hit rate!)
10.Ananya Deb - 5.5 (.5 for Greek god part tho Aeschylus was somebody else)
11. R.Krishna - 7 (nice work)
12. B.Sreeram - 5 (cafe-panic-amnesia? :-)
13. Bharat Jayakumar - 2 (xQ = 0.5! )
14. Pauline Daniel - 4 (guess more!)
15. Vimal Vikran Vardhan M - 2.5 ( V3M :-)
16. Bhaskar Singh - 2 (hi nerd pal?? ;-)
17. Rajaram Sethuraman - 1 (enjoyed ur effort)
18. Sourabh Issar - 1.5 (Bromine, not Iodine)
19. Girish Bhat - 3 ( u nu no uqu in sequence didn't u? ;-)
20. Syam Prasad - 4 (It's Winston Smith in '84)
21. Ryan Michigan - 8.5 (ref my expl on Q9. )
22. Husain Poonawala - .5 (BS named after a movie)
23. Partha Sengupta - 1 (Dude! ;-)
24. Debanjan Ghosh - 5 (solid show)
25. Mahesh M Nair - 5.5 (back in tvm?)

----- STATS --------------------------------------------------------------

Funnest!-
Classroom/School on Room 101!
X stands for the cross, rotated by 45 degrees on Xmas
People who became words: Dismal & Gestapo! on Dismas/Gestas
Most of us know it as an unknown word! on Virgule

Guessest!- good guessing
Rexin,Shahtoosh on Corduroy
Geek on Nerd
Rat Trap on Room 101
Alice In Chains on Alice Cooper (QM: same Alice I wonder?)

* Ryan Michigan tops with 8.5 points
* Average score : 4
* All the questions were answered.
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Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Dumbbells Under The Bed *

Ever heard the one about the guy who learnt body-building through a correspondence course? He didn't become much brawnier, but the postman is now the strongest man in town!

"This is what Zeno said, what about you?"*

It's not enough that you read and come to know of great men's thoughts; what's important is that you think about these, form an opinion of your own and know what they really mean. Think, what if. Think, what more. Only then can you assimilate greatness and become better for having read/heard it. Think, Why. Think, Why Not. Like the Eagles sang in their song Already Gone, you can see the stars and still not see the light.**

This is the path to discovery and, often, invention- small deviations may result in totally different though possibly equally great, if not greater, destinations. The pleasures are in the journey on the thought-train; even if the terminals are the same, the route makes a difference.

What say you?

- Thomas Jay Cubb

NOTES
---------
* This piece was inspired by a few lines mentioned in Tibor Fischer's The Thought Gang. The comparison in the title is from a passage in it. Ever since I read it, this particular thought has influenced me a lot. Other listings included -
Stupidity, that's me. - about the value of humility.
Live according to nature. - no greed path to happiness.

** In the case of good books, the point is not how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you. -Mortimer J. Adler,
philosopher, educator and author (1902-2001)

Monday, November 14, 2005

Doubled

This was written to report the occasion of a colleague getting married.
---------------------------------
DOUBLED!
---------------------------------
From a lion to a cub,
Welcome to the Club.

-Thomas Jay Cubb
---------------------------------

Meaning plane 1
You have just gotten married; we have been married for many years. Come and start enjoying the joy of matrimony.

Meaning plane 2
You were a lion (with free will) once, now you'll become a cub again! We share your misery!

Friday, November 11, 2005

Surprisingly SBI

There are a lot of ads doing the round asking different questions, all of them with the same answer: Surprisingly SBI.

Which bank has the most ATMS?
Which bank gives you ......... ... the best X?
...
...

Surprisingly SBI.

Why should it be surprising? Why do they have such low self-esteem? Didn't the ad agency think about that?

Does SBI expand to Surprising Bank of India? :-)

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Living To Fight Another Day

After writing the elimination round of any quiz competition, there is always this doubt in one's mind - Have we scored enough? Will we get through to the final round?

In my experience, I have found that around 50% does it. Of course, the more points you get, the surer you are to get through. But if one is sure about around half the questions, the odds are that you will make it. We might not qualify as the toppers, but we will most probably scrape through - living to fight another day and that's what counts.

On a couple of occasions, I have been eliminated even after touching this magic figure. Each time, there were more than a couple of teams on the same score, we were shot out after a tiebreaker or a coin-toss and apology. It's fair and square, I've been on the benefiting side as well.

Now, suppose you are sure about 60% and you still don't get through.
Chances are that -
a) you were wrong on a few (QM googlies). Oh.......#@*#.....That! How could I have not spotted that! The QM knows better than you.
b) you know better than the QM. He uses an old edition of that book. But there's no point in arguing, remember the cardinal rule : the QM is always, always, no matter what, right.
c) it was not a good set of questions- hugely loaded with current affairs or some niche topic - favouring some teams with specific backgrounds. Was Rembrandt really that good? So many questions... Or is today that important a day?
d) The other teams were fantabulously great. They make it every time, why don't I?

In all four scenarios, it's probably best that you didn't make it. But no matter what, stay to watch the final round. Don't leave the venue disappointed.

On the other hand, if you didn't score around half and the cut off was round about there, it's time for some serious book- or web-crawling!

What say you?

This 50% rule is also the criterion by which I make out who google on my online quizzes and who don't. Generally, I'm right! Or, it was a bad set of questions....More thoughts on what makes a good set of prelims questions, later.

To The Book Borrower - I

Because nobody ever returns books they borrow... After some time it becomes the borrower's - why return it now, he has read it anyway! I used to write this in every book I bought.

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TO THE BOOK BORROWER - I
-------------------------------------

This book is dearly mine,
And if you, my darling, borrow
Mind to return within weeks nine
For that is the mine-thine fine line.
Beyond which is bereavement, sorrow.

- Thomas Jay Cubb