The Atlanta Algorithm

As with many other cities in the US, Atlanta has a public transportation network (known as MARTA), which is a joke. In fact, the metro is ok. But my issue is with the buses. Unfortunately, most of Atlanta is not also walkable. Lack of proper sidewalks in the residential neighborhoods. Life in Europe has taught us that it is not necessary to drive, and it is ok to use the public transport. :D Given this state, we choose to live close to my university. 20 minutes by walk.

There is also a bus stop close to both my apartment and my lab. A bus (#6) passes by every 30 minutes, connecting my home to my lab in the university. I usually walk to my lab, and return, by foot. But since I have a free monthly public transportation pass from the university, I decided to use it.

"MARTA On the Go" a mobile app offers a real-time schedule of the bus, unlike Google maps which shows a static schedule. Today I checked the bus time just before leaving home. The bus was on its way. It said "6 minutes late" with the current location. MARTA On the Go does not show the estimated arrival time at each stop with this dynamic information. Rather, it shows the current location of the bus (that means, you should have an idea of the road map, or you need to use it in conjunction with another application such as Google maps) and the current delay. While this app does not solve the inefficiency of the public transport, it certainly mitigates the uncertainty and help plan the timing better.

Before leaving home, I check the app to confirm the arrival time of the bus. However, the timing is not accurate. The bus usually comes with a time interval [-3:5], that means 3 minutes earlier to 5 minutes later. But now for the third time in a row, the bus came 10 minutes late. To ensure I do not miss the bus, I always arrive 3 - 4 minutes earlier. Therefore, I leave home 7 minutes earlier than the bus' arrival time at the bus stop (since I need to walk a bit to reach the bus stop).

Sometimes a bus appears without showing in the app. Sometimes the bus shows in the app in the opposite direction. Sometimes a bus shows up in the app, but it is in fact out of order. So the app is useful. But not complete.

Every city's public transportation system teaches me some new life lesson. I learned something in Jeju. Now in Atlanta. I like these life lessons - I do not underestimate them. Trust yourself, instead of trusting an unreliable external entity!

The Jeju Algorithm

I like to travel with minimal or random plans. Traveling to Jeju was remarkable. But it did give some challenges in unplanned random moves, due to the language barrier. Google maps were showing in Korean. It is easy to read sentences in foreign languages as long as the language is written in a script that you can read (such as a Latin script). But that is not the case with Korean.

The locals in Jeju were amicable and came towards to help us with directions even without we asking. But unfortunately, most of them were able to speak only Korean. Then, there are information screens in every other bus stop. Though they are supposed to work in many languages including Korean, English, and Chinese, the touch screen was not working correctly, and it was nearly impossible to change the language in many of those machines. Buses had the information in English, such as the next stop, and the stop after that.

We had to go to a place in the main street. We know that it is a straight line. But several buses were going on the road along the direction. We decided to get on a random bus. We planned to stay on the bus as long as it goes straight. But unfortunately, at the next stop, it turned to a side road in the right. We got down and returned to the main street, and boarded another bus in the next stop. This bus also turned left after two stops. Finally, we asked a foreigner. He did not know the location that we are talking about. But when I told him that we need to go in a straight line, it is probably number 105 (not the actual number he mentioned. I just forgot what he said at this time. So let's assume that is 105 for the sake of this blog post). He warned us that he is not so sure. Then we were waiting. Another bus came. But not number 105. We decided to continue our Jeju algorithm. Our Jeju algorithm works with limited knowledge and certain assumptions. The path is definitely in a straight line, and there is at least one bus that reaches the destination. There is, of course, no direct bus between our origin and destination. We boarded this bus though it is not number 105. Luckily, the bus indeed took us to the destination. Not bad. We reached the destination by using three buses. Ideally, we should have used only two buses. But as our algorithm is not optimized, we ended up with three buses. :D Our return trip was tuned with the knowledge gained, and we returned merely with just one transit (using two buses).

Though this was not, of course, an optimal experience (we wasted some time and money for the bus fare for each leg of our trip). But it did leave us with some exciting memory to talk about for the years to come. :D