27 May 2005 @ 22:53, by Raymond Powers
Flemming has a great article and editorial on his blog about optimization as applied to the infrastructure of our society. He makes some astute observations that support how we can create a sustainable more efficient means of sharing resources. The model he uses is from a startup company called DayJet.
It goes something like this, but visit Fleming's site and read the whole thing.
Essentially about a private jet company called DayJet, which has made a piece of software that makes it economical to provide relatively cheap business flights from just about anywhere to just about anywhere in the U.S. on cheap jets that have seats for just 3 passengers. They plan on having between 40 and 300 planes like that. The big deal is their optimization software. All airlines have to do a big optimization calculation, to figure out how best to utilize their aircraft, and transport the most people to places they want to go, for the lowest cost. But even for a major airline, the number of planes and routes and destinations is relatively small, and they don't change their routes very often. What DayJet has in mind is a much huger set of optimization calculations, done not every month, but every time somebody wants to go somewhere. The use of the planes will change all the time, and any little airport might be used, as long as the jets can land there. So, the whole calculation needs to be done basically for each customer, in relation to whoever else wants to fly around that time. You know, it isn't economical to fly just one person, so the optimization will figure out how best to serve everybody and fill up the seats as much as possible.
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