Experts are divided on the best method of finding a great parking space.
专家们对寻找好停车位的最佳方法意见不一。
It's Saturday afternoon and you have a few errands to run at the mall. So, it seems, does everyone else. The mall parking lot is crowded. So, where should you park your car if you're trying to save time – at the first spot you see, no matter how far away from the entrance, or just drive up and down lanes looking for an elusive spot closer in?
现在是周六下午，你在购物中心有几件事要办。其他人似乎也是如此。商场的停车场很拥挤。那么，如果你想节省时间，你应该把车停在哪里呢?是停在你看到的第一个停车位，不管离入口有多远，还是只是在车道上开来开去，在更近的地方寻找一个难以捉摸的停车位?
There's a Study for That 有一个关于这个的研究In a study published in the Journal of Statistical Mechanics, physics professors Sidney Redner (from the Santa Fe Institute) and Paul Krapvisky (Boston University) applied their mathematical prowess to pinpoint the best parking spot search strategies. (Here we define the "best" spot as the one nearest the mall entrance. Some people might favor a spot on the top floor of a parking garage to prevent their car from getting dinged. But that's another story.)
发表在《统计力学杂志》上的一项研究中，物理学教授Sidney Redner(来自圣菲研究所)和Paul Krapvisky(波士顿大学)运用他们的数学能力确定了最佳停车位搜索策略。(这里我们将“最佳”地点定义为离商场入口最近的地点。有些人可能喜欢在停车场的顶层有一个停车位，以防止他们的车被撞到。但那是另一回事了。)
Redner and Krapvisky divided parking personas into three categories: meek, optimistic and prudent.
Redner和Krapvisky将停车角色分为三类:温顺、乐观和谨慎。
- "Meek" drivers immediately settle for the first spot they find, which may leave spots near the front unfilled, plus incur a long walk.
“温顺”的司机会立即在他们找到的第一个停车位上停下来，这可能会让靠近前方的停车位空着，而且还要走很长一段路。
- "Optimistic" drivers aren't afraid to hunt, certain that eventually they'll triumphantly land their primo spot, no matter how many times they have to circle the lot to find it.
“乐观”的司机不害怕寻找，他们确信最终他们会成功地找到他们的最佳位置，不管他们要绕着停车场转多少圈才能找到它。
- "Prudent" parkers are a bit more aggressive that meek drivers, bypassing the low-hanging fruit in hopes of a closer spot, but unwilling to circle several times to get just a bit closer to their destination. They may end up backtracking to a spot a "meek" driver would have claimed initially if they don't find something better immediately.
“谨慎的”泊车者比温顺的司机更有进取心，他们会绕过低垂的果实，希望能有一个更近的地方，但不愿意为了更接近目的地而绕几圈。如果他们不能立即找到更好的地方，他们可能会回到一个“温顺”的司机最初会声称的地方。
After identifying their categories, the scientists created a simulation, using processes such as probability theory and rate equations. The researchers found that the "prudent" strategy was the best because it costed drivers the least amount of time, followed by the "optimistic" strategy and then the "meek" strategy.
在确定了它们的类别后，科学家们利用概率论和速率方程等过程创建了一个模拟。研究人员发现，“谨慎”策略是最好的，因为它花费司机最少的时间，其次是“乐观”策略，然后是“温顺”策略。
Redner is quick to point out that this particular exercise is purely mathematical. "We tried hard to minimize the number of free parameters by judicious choices, such as assigning the same speed for walking and driving," he says via email. Of course, they couldn't account for every variable. "The main complication was the inherent many-body nature of the parking process; namely, one doesn't know in advance which spots are free and the game is whether to pick the current spot or try another spot (which may not be open) closer to the destination."
Redner很快指出，这个特别的练习纯粹是数学上的。他在电子邮件中说:“我们努力通过明智的选择来最小化自由参数的数量，比如为走路和开车分配相同的速度。”当然，他们不能解释所有的变量。“主要的复杂性是停车过程固有的多体性质;也就是说，玩家事先并不知道哪些景点是免费的，游戏决定的是选择当前的景点还是尝试另一个离目的地更近的景点(可能没有开放)。”
They also omitted real-world variables like driver speed, intense competition for spots or the irrationality of harried human beings.
他们还忽略了现实世界中的一些变量，比如司机的速度、对停车位的激烈竞争，以及饱受折磨的人类的非理性行为。
The Real World of Parking 停车的真实世界OK, so that's the mathematical side of the story. But is there a parking lot strategy that better accounts for the quirks of real people?
这就是这个故事的数学方面。但有没有一种停车场策略能更好地解释真人的怪癖呢?
"It is important to note this simple fact: The success of my parking strategy is, in part, dependent upon which parking strategy the other drivers select," emails Andrew Velkey, an associate professor of psychology at Christopher Newport University in Virginia. "It is an excellent application of Game Theory (e.g. the Prisoner's Dilemma). My 'best' strategy is only better if enough other drivers select one of the other alternative strategies. If everyone tried to play the same parking strategy, it would no longer be optimal."
弗吉尼亚州克里斯托弗·纽波特大学(Christopher Newport University)心理学副教授安德鲁·维尔基(Andrew Velkey)在邮件中写道:“注意到这个简单的事实很重要:我的停车策略是否成功，在一定程度上取决于其他司机选择哪种停车策略。”“这是博弈论(如囚徒困境)的绝佳应用。我的“最佳”策略只有在足够多的其他驾驶者选择其他策略之一的情况下才会更好。如果所有人都试图采用相同的停车策略，那么它就不再是最佳的。”
Velkey notes that most people spend too much time looking for the "closest" spot. Ideal parking spaces (like right in front of your final destination) are usually unavailable.
维尔基指出，大多数人花了太多时间寻找“最近”的位置。理想的停车位(比如你最终目的地的正前方)通常是没有的。
"Time and perceived scarcity are the two biggest factors that affect parking strategies. People will spend time looking for a parking space and incur a travel-time cost from their vehicle to their final destination after they have parked their car. It appears that people are often attempting to reduce the travel-time cost and often incur a greater acquisition time cost as a result," he says. "It's most interesting to note that people will try to get a parking spot that is closest to the door of the gym/exercise club they are about to enter."
“时间和稀缺感是影响停车策略的两个最大因素。人们会花时间寻找停车位，并在停车后产生从车辆到最终目的地的旅行时间成本。人们似乎经常试图减少旅行时间成本，结果往往导致更大的获取时间成本，”他说。“最有趣的是，人们会尽量找一个离健身房/健身俱乐部门最近的停车位。”
To answer our parking lot question, Velkey referred to a paper published in the journal Transportation Science "where they determined that the optimal strategy was to randomly pick a row and go to the closest apparent space in the row ('Pick a Row, Closest Space (PRCS)'), rather than driving up and down rows looking for a closer spot ('Cycling')."
为了回答我们关于停车场的问题，Velkey参考了发表在《交通科学》杂志上的一篇论文，“在那篇论文中，他们确定了最佳策略，即随机选择一排，并前往该排中最近的视在空间(‘选择一排，最近的空间(PRCS)’)，而不是开车上下一排寻找一个更近的位置(‘骑行’)。”
In other words, the time saved in finding a spot made up for the longer time spent walking to the front door. It wasn't a huge time savings though. In that model, the expected time to the front door from the spot using the PRCS method was 61.31 seconds; with the Cycling method it was 70.70 seconds.
换句话说，在找车位上省下的时间弥补了走到前门所花的更长时间。不过这并没有节省大量的时间。在该模型中，使用PRCS方法从现场到前门的预期时间为61.31秒;骑行法为70.70秒。
Velkey says those few times where we do score a spot at the front become very memorable to us. But "perhaps even more memorable are the times when we park our cars and come across a space right in front on our way to the entrance of the destination – we will employ a counterfactual 'if I had only driven around more' process when we notice these spaces we 'missed,'" he says. "As a result, people will over-predict both the likely availability of these spaces and their own likelihood of obtaining these spaces."
维尔基说，我们在前面得分的几次对我们来说是非常难忘的。但他说:“也许更令人难忘的是，当我们停车时，在前往目的地入口的路上，正好看到前面有一块空地——当我们注意到这些我们‘错过了’的空地时，我们会采用一种反事实的‘如果我能多开几圈’过程。”“因此，人们会过度预测这些空间的可能可用性，以及他们自己获得这些空间的可能性。”
