April 1997 € Volume 24 € Number 2

Practitioners Page

Back on Track

Welcome to the second appearance of the practitioners' page, which we're still trying to make into a regular department in OR/MS Today. (The first, in case you missed it, appeared in October.)

If you're coming to San Diego for the national meetings in May, plan to attend the Edelman Prize competition and the practice track sessions. The full description of the finalists' projects appeared in the February issue of OR/MS Today. These presentations are not only descriptions of excellent technical problem-solving, but also good examples of how to present technical material to management.

Let us know how CPMS is doing! Do the practice track sessions, the Edelman Prize competition, and the practitioners' workshops really help you? Do you like this page? Are there other things you wish someone would do? Or are you just delighted with whatever journals and conference announcements you get?

One thing we thought you might like is good stories about the real world -- and maybe you have one or more of your own to share. For this issue, CPMS Chair Howard Finkelberg submitted the winning entry. Send me yours! I'm on e-mail at dsamuel@seas.gwu.edu, or you can send me via regular mail at 8711 Chippendale Court, Annandale, VA 22003.

-- Doug Samuelson
dsamuel@seas.gwu.edu

Yellow Paint & Common Sense

The young engineering student stood with his fellow interns at the New York City Traffic Department, eagerly awaiting the words of the Great Man. Henry Barnes, New York's traffic commissioner in the 1960s, was the only great man ever to come out of the traffic engineering profession.

His words, however, seemed anything but momentous. "In this business," he said, "there are very few problems that can't be solved with some yellow paint and a little bit of common sense."

The old man seemed to have lost it.

A few days later, with this bit of wisdom quickly forgotten, our intern was assigned to assist one of the senior engineers in an accident investigation. The intersection being studied, Southern Boulevard and Boston Road in the Bronx, had been the site of more than 100 accidents in the previous year, resulting in dozens of injuries and seven fatalities; it was rated as the most dangerous intersection by far in the New York City. (In those days this intersection lay in the heart of a bustling residential/ commercial neighborhood. Two decades later, Jimmy Carter used a rubble strewn lot two blocks away as a symbol of urban decay and devastation.)

The intersection consisted of two heavily traveled multi-lane roads crossing at a sharp angle, with a local street joining at the intersection. An elevated subway line entered the intersection from Southern Boulevard on one side, and left it on Boston Road on the other. To prevent conflicts, engineers had installed safety islands forcing traffic entering the intersection from Boston Road to leave via Southern Boulevard, and vice versa.

The engineer and the intern spent all morning measuring the intersection carefully. They timed all the lights. They checked all the signs and reviewed the traffic flow patterns. Everything was as it should be. There was no way any of these accidents should have happened.

They stood on a traffic island, reviewing their notes and trying to figure out what needed to be done. Just then, a car coming east on Southern Boulevard from the Bronx Zoo hit the traffic island at about 50 mph, hurtled in the air between them two analysts, and continued east on Southern Boulevard towards the Hunts Point Market.

A quick walk to where the car had come from and the problem became clear: against the background of the elevated train, it was impossible to see the "safety" island, which, of course, was painted white!

A few days and a few gallons of yellow paint later, the problem was solved. The Great Man was proved right. And the young intern learned a lesson that has proven more useful than anything he ever learned in a classroom.

--Howard Finkelberg
finkelberg@bbdo.com

Help Wanted

Experienced OR/MS practitioners needed to help support our planned expansion. Must have a sincere desire to help build awareness and recognition of the OR/MS profession.

Open to all, CPMS is the only organization that actively supports the real-world practice of operations research and the management sciences. In order to expand our activities and make them more meaningful to our constituents, we need volunteers. Opportunities to participate actively and make a real difference are available in a number of areas:

Awards and prizes
Franz Edelman prize competition
Franz Edelman videotapes mailto:finkelberg@bbdo.com
Isolated Practitioner workshops
Membership
National meeting Practice Track sessions
Newsletter
Practice case studies

If playing a significant role in any of these activities is attractive to you, please contact the chairman of CPMS, Howard Finkelberg, via e-mail (finkelberg@bbdo.com), fax (212-459-6645) or phone (212-459-6313). Active contributors will be eligible for nomination to the prestigious CPMS Council.

--HF

E-mail to the Editorial Department of OR/MS Today: orms@lionhrtpub.com

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