Why are there airline delays?

Austin Goolsbee writes in Slate.com:

Mayer and Sinai’s study also identified the real culprit: the deliberate overscheduling of flights at peak periods by major airlines trying to increase the amount of connecting traffic at their hub airports. Major airlines like United, Delta, and American use a hub-and-spoke model as a way to offer consumers more flight choices and to save money by centralizing operations. Most of the traffic they send through a hub is on the way to somewhere else. (Low-cost carriers, on the other hand, typically carry passengers from one point to another without offering many connections.) Overscheduling at the hubs can’t explain all delays–weather and maintenance problems also contribute. But nationally, about 75 percent of flights go in or out of hub airports, making overscheduling the most important factor…

To cut down on delays, all Continental and American need to do at Newark and O’Hare respectively is to spread flights throughout the day. Continental does just that at O’Hare, because that airport isn’t its hub. Without many connecting passengers to worry about, the airline studiously avoids the congested departure periods. But the hub carriers would lose passengers and money if they did this. Spreading out flights would leave some connecting passengers with long layovers, and everyone in the travel business knows that people won’t pay as much for those tickets. Most people have a hard time figuring out which flights are leaving at overscheduled times, so they tend to avoid tickets that already have long delays built into them.

How can you avoid getting stuck on a late-leaving flight out of O’Hare? You’ve got three alternatives. If you are flying on a dominant carrier out of its hub, you can try to fly at a quiet time of day. To figure out when that is, you can download the airline’s timetable from its Web site to check when flights to other cities are scheduled to leave. You could also fly on an airline that doesn’t use O’Hare as a hub or on a low-cost carrier, both of which tend to avoid the crowded periods. Your last option is to take a deep breath and thank your airline for having so many connecting flights for you. If you’re delayed, you’re just paying the price of access to all those convenient choices.

Here is the full analysis.

Should Londoners abandon public transport?

Collectively, of course not. But for the selfish individual is it worthwhile? It turns out that the quarterly road deaths in London last year averaged 54. 52 people were murdered in the July 7th attacks (and four times more people travel by tube or bus than drive, cycle or walk). Leaving public transport is only going to be safer if the terrorists strike much more often in future.

How likely is that? Since we were all told that attacks were inevitable in the end, the horrible fact that they finally happened shouldn’t really change our estimate of the chance that they will happen again. Experiences in New York and Madrid suggest that a sustained campaign is hard. Let’s hope so.

Aside: Gary Becker and Yona Rubinstein have a paper on the response to the fear of attacks. It seems that defying terrorists is a fixed cost, willingly paid by frequent users of planes, buses or cafes but declined by casual users. That accords with my experience: I have no worries about returning to live in London permanently, but am pleased that my baby daughter will be travelling in a car on our imminent visit.

Kierkegaard and Dubai

One is weary of living in the country and moves to the city; one is weary of one’s native land and goes abroad; one is europemuede [weary of Europe] and goes to America etc.; one indulges in the fanatical hope of an endless journey from star to star.  Or there is another direction, but still extensive.  One is weary of eating on porcelain and eats on silver; wearying of that, one eats on gold; one burns down half of Rome in order to visualize the Trojan conflagration.  This method cancels itself and is the spurious infinity…

The method I propose…consists in changing the method of cultivation and the kinds of crops.  Here at once is the principle of limitation, the sole saving principle in the world.  The more a person limits himself, the more resourceful he becomes.  A solitary prisoner for life is extremely resourceful; to him a spider can be a source of great amusement.

Two points: a) mid-19th century Denmark cannot have been so much fun, and b) it is time to move on to Singapore…

By the way, that quotation is from "Rotation of Crops," in Either/Or.

Scholars versus Activists

Scholars seek the truth, activists already know the truth.  Activists don’t like questioning, debate or independent research.  Consider how Dennis Durbin and Flaura Winston, two activists at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia who have published research on child car seats, react to Steve Levitt’s work:

Their [Levitt and Dubner] conclusions stand in stark contrast to the existing body of
scientific data that support current child restraint recommendations,
and are, in our opinion, irresponsible and dangerous….We hope that this misleading article does not cost a child his life.

This is not science this is a threat – anyone who questions us or our research is putting children in danger.  Back off or we will tar you as monsters.

Contrast this approach with that of a scholar interested in truth:

What is more puzzling to me is why my results and Heaton’s both suggest
very little injury benefit of car seats, but the medical literature
often finds 70% (!!) reductions of injuries with car seats relative to
seat belts. We find reductions that are an order of magnitude smaller.
They use very different methods — surveying people in the weeks after
crashes for instance — but still it is really a puzzle. Which is why,
when you read my paper, I am extremely cautious in interpreting the
injury findings.

I hope that the medical researchers, Heaton,
and I can all work together to try to make some sense of the
conflicting results being generated by these different methodologies to
resolve this important question.

Of course Steve doesn’t need my help, as always the data is his best defense.

Will Dubai become a major tourist center?

Chris Masse posed me this question.  Here are some reasons why not:

1. The city is unwalkable.

2. The temperature can hit 120 in summer, with humidity of up to 90 percent.

3. Much of the place resembles Las Vegas but without casinos.  You can’t even access www.tradesports.com.

4. Most of the modern buildings are ugly or at best mediocre.

5. Most items are no cheaper here than in the United States.

6. Few people are interested in studying economically fertile but politically dystopian Blade Runner-like scenarios.

7. It is more fun for men than for women.

On the other side:

1. Many of the visitors and potential visitors hold a different aesthetic than do North Americans.  They admire the city’s aspirational qualities for its own sake and care less about traditional beauty in the sense of European high culture.  Some would call them "tacky."  Others would say that observing an Arab success is worthy on its own terms.

2. Retail space per capita is four times that of the United States.

3. I am told it is only a ninety minute flight from Karachi.

The bottom line: Yes, Dubai will become a major tourist center.

Markets in everything: Virtual sweatshops

We’ve known for some time that online games have spawned markets where virtual assets go for real dollars. What’s the implication? Profit opportunities for anyone willing to put together high-tech capital and low-cost labor from places such as China, Indonesia and Romania:

Rich Thurman earned $100,000 by farming 9 billion gold in Ultima
Online… Thurman says he had "up to
30 PCs running at once, automatically collecting gold for me."

That is the first step. It isn’t too difficult from there to make the
leap into creating your own sweatshop. All you need is the ability to
write game macros or the money to purchase them. That’s right, if you
know where to look, they are on the open market. A macro that uses a
teleportation exploit in WOW is currently going for $3,000. Then just
hire cheap labor to monitor the bots.

The full story is at the gaming site 1UP, and worth browsing. The tip from Edward Castronova at Terra Nova. Castronova studies the economics and sociology of virtual worlds – read his most famous paper.

 

Guest Blogger: Tim Harford

As I search for enlightenment in Peru, Tim Harford will be enlightening readers of Marginal Revolution.  Tim writes the Dear Economist column for the Financial Times.  He is also an economist with the International Finance Corporation, co-author of the excellent primer on foreign aid, The Market for Aid, and author of the forthcoming The Undercover Economist.  I am looking forward to reading the Undercover Economist of which Steve Levitt says:

The Undercover Economist is a rare specimen: a book on economics that
will enthrall its readers. Beautifully written and argued, it brings
the power of economics to life. This book should be required reading
for every elected official, business leader, and university student.

MR readers are in for a treat this week!

Mike Davis on Dubai

Yes, he is the one who visits Los Angeles and thinks of labor unions.  Here is his take on Dubai.  Consider this bit:

The hotel driver is waiting for you in a Rolls Royce Silver Seraph. Friends have recommended the Armani Hotel in the 160-story tower or the seven-star hotel with an atrium so huge that the Statue of Liberty would fit inside, but instead you have opted to fulfill a childhood fantasy. You always have wanted to be Captain Nemo in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

Your jellyfish-shaped hotel is, in fact, exactly 66 feet below the sea surface. Each of its 220 luxury suites has clear Plexiglas walls that provide spectacular views of passing mermaids as well as the hotel’s famed "underwater fireworks:" a hallucinatory exhibition of "water bubbles, swirled sand, and carefully deployed lighting." Any initial anxiety about the safety of your sea-bottom resort is dispelled by the smiling concierge. The structure has a multi-level failsafe security system, he reassures you, that includes protection against terrorist submarines as well as missiles and aircraft…

After Shanghai (current population: 15 million), Dubai (current population: 1.5 million) is the world’s biggest building site: an emerging dreamworld of conspicuous consumption and what locals dub "supreme lifestyles."

Dozens of outlandish mega-projects — including "The World" (an artificial archipelago), Burj Dubai (the Earth’s tallest building), the Hydropolis (that underwater luxury hotel, the Restless Planet theme park, a domed ski resort perpetually maintained in 40C heat, and The Mall of Arabia, a hyper-mall — are actually under construction or will soon leave the drawing boards.

OK, that is 2010 he is writing about, but it will happen and soon.  Funny thing is, Davis doesn’t even seem to like the place.  Thanks to Boing Boing for the pointer.

Sundry observations about Dubai

1. My very chatty and friendly Pakistani barber, while holding a razor to my throat, asked me to pledge that we would continue an email correspondence for the rest of our lives.  Every sentence he referrered to me as "Very Great Boss," and repeatedly expressed his satisfaction that I was not one of those "two-assed men" who are otherwise so common.  Imagine Borat with Eric Idle-like intonations.  But you know, I still am not sure if he was weird.

2. If they promise you a "surprise desert tour," be warned it will involve scaling (and descending) a fifty-foot high sand dune with a four-wheel drive at full speed.  No matter what they tell you, this is not fun.  Afterwards the driver spoke: "We have accidents (pause)…but not so many casualities [sic].  The vehicles roll over, but the sand is soft."

3. If you want to find heavily veiled women (not hard to do), the easiest way is to visit the fancy shopping malls and head directly for the make-up counter.

4. I am told that the dowry for the average (native) Dubai woman is now running about $150,000.  Many Dubai men are substituting into foreign women.

5. The "traditional" belly dance was done by a Russian woman; Dubai women are no longer allowed to do such things in public.

The Revolution reaches Outer Space

At MR we are often told, "We love Marginal Revolution but when traveling the outer rings of Saturn downloading it takes such a long time."  We agree and in order to make our product more easily available to other life forms we now do OSS, Outer Space Syndication, courtesy of Blogs in Space.  This will require certain changes on our part as the producers of Blogs in Space are careful to make clear:

Bloggers who use this site are urged to keep their blogs devoid of any
overt language, comments or content designed to offend, taunt or
provoke alien life forms in any way. Aliens may find your lifestyle,
grammar or the picture of your girlfriend offensive, we just don’t
know. Blog In Space does not warrant that any content transmitted into
space will not be objectionable to alien life forms and will not be
responsible for alien abductions, close encounters or intergalactic
war.

Will OSS increase the audience for MR?  I’m not sure but I do believe that one day entire alien civilizations will devote themselves to the study, appreciation and worship of the bildungsroman.  You think I jest?  Stranger things have happened.

Thanks to Jacqueline for the pointer.

Does daylight savings time kill people?

The new energy bill will give us an extra hour of daylight savings time for parts of both March and November.  But is this a good idea?  Is daylight savings time at all a good idea?  I don’t know, but here is a new argument I never heard before:

“Springing forward” is tantamount to imposing a mild case of jet lag throughout the country, with potentially unhappy consequences.

Might that mean more traffic accidents?

…following the spring shift to Daylight Savings Time (when one hour of sleep is lost) there is a measurable increase in the number of traffic accidents that result in fatalities. Furthermore, it replicates the absence of any “rebound” reduction of accidents following the fall shift to DST (when the opportunity is present for an additional hour of sleep).

Of the two competing hypotheses for this increase in accidents, namely the one that suggests that it is the increased sleep deficit that causes the change in accident rate, versus notions based upon reduced illumination levels when driving to work, or suppositions that people forget the DST time change, fail to adjust their clocks, and find themselves rushing to work to avoid being late, the sleep hypothesis seems to be the most tenable. Hypotheses based upon haste and dim morning light both predict the bulk of the increased accidents to be confined to the morning hours. The sleep loss hypothesis would predict that individuals become more tired as the day wears on and hence the bulk of the accidents will appear later in the day. It is, of course, this latter pattern which appears with most of the accident fatality increase confined to the period after noon.

If the sleep loss hypothesis is correct, then why isn’t there a reduction in the number of traffic accidents in the fall, when the shift back to standard time provides an extra hour for sleep? Although this was the pattern observed in one study (Coren, 1996b) it has not replicated in other studies. The failure of the “safety rebound” may simply have to do with human nature. Just because a person has the opportunity to sleep for an addition hour does not mean that people actually will go to sleep on time. Many may spend that extra hour socializing or watching television. In some instances, where individuals do go to bed at the appropriate time, their usual circadian rhythm may still wake them after 7 or 8 hours in response internal signals or the external morning increase in illumination. Contrast this to what happens in the spring, where an individual’s work schedule will enforce the person’s awakening on the new DST time in order to meet job commitments.

Here is a blog post (with further discussion) on the topic, here is the underlying study, the original tip is from Eric Rasmusen.  I have yet to see data on whether Indiana — which does not adopt Daylight Savings Time — is in fact a safer place to drive, at least for a part of each year.