The relative worst order ratio applied to seat reservation

Joan Boyar, Paul Medvedev

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

8 Scopus citations

Abstract

The relative worst order ratio is a new measure for the quality of online algorithms, which has been giving new separations and even new algorithms for a variety of problems. Here, we apply the relative worst order ratio to the seat reservation problem, the problem of assigning seats to passengers in a train. For the unit price problem, where all tickets have the same cost, we show that First-Fit and Best-Fit are better than Worst-Fit, even though they have not been separated using the competitive ratio. The same relative worst order ratio result holds for the proportional price problem, where the ticket price is proportional to the distance travelled. In contrast, no deterministic algorithm has a competitive ratio, or even a competitive ratio on accommodating sequences, which is bounded below by a constant. It is also shown that the worst order ratio for seat reservation algorithms is very closely related to the competitive ratio on accommodating sequences.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
EditorsTorben Hagerup, Jyrki Katajainen
PublisherSpringer Verlag
Pages90-101
Number of pages12
ISBN (Electronic)3540223398, 9783540223399
DOIs
StatePublished - 2004

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume3111
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • Computer Science(all)

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