K. Spieser

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The objective of this work is to provide analytical guidelines and financial justification for the design of shared-vehicle mobility-on-demand systems. Specifically, we consider the fundamental issue of determining the appropriate number of vehicles to field in the fleet, and estimate the financial benefits of several models of car sharing. As a ca...

The objective of this work is to provide analytical guidelines and financial justification for the design of shared-vehicle mobility-on-demand systems. Specifically, we consider the fundamental issue of determining the appropriate number of vehicles to field in the fleet, and estimate the financial benefits of several models of car sharing. As a ca...

This work considers multi-vehicle systems in which self-interested, mobile agents compete to capture a target that has been distributed on a ring. In the scenarios studied, agents face the added difficulty of having minimal sensing capabilities and limited knowledge of where the target is located. We consider strategic algorithms that allow agents...

In this work, we present a Nash equilibrium solution for a timed, asymmetric skirmish between two agents: an attacker, and a defender. We derive a solution by focusing on strategy profiles in which both the attacker and defender randomize their actions, which correspond to times, over a common atomic support. We show this class of strategies admits...

This paper takes an empirical approach to identify operational factors at busy airports that may predate go-around maneuvers. Using four years of data from San Francisco International Airport, we begin our investigation with a statistical approach to investigate which features of airborne, ground operations (e.g., number of inbound aircraft, number...

Motivated by next-generation air transportation systems, this paper investigates the relationship between traffic volume and congestion in a multi-agent system, assuming that the agents can communicate their intentions with one another. In particular, we consider n independent mobile agents, each assigned an origin and a destination point, and stud...

In this paper we extend our earlier work on the stabilization of crowds that are governed by psychological dynamics derived from Le Bon's late nineteenth-century suggestibility theory. Earlier work was restricted to the case where the crowd is one-dimensional, but now a general two-dimensional crowd is considered. The control scheme involves placin...

This work is part of an investigation aimed at applying the tools of control theory to gain a deeper understanding of the behaviour and attitudes that develop in individuals and in groups of people, with the goal of ultimately controlling the relevant psychological dynamics. The present treatment investigates an approach to stabilise one-dimensiona...

This work is part of an ongoing investigation aimed at applying the tools of control theory to gain a deeper understanding of crowd psychology and ultimately to control the relevant psychological dynamics. The present treatment investigates an approach to stabilize a queue, that is, a one-dimensional crowd structure. We pursue the problem in which...

This work is motivated by the observation that students in a classroom sometimes seem to behave not as a group of independent individuals, but instead as a collective body. Interaction among students leads to psychological dynamics within the class, specifically the propagation of attitudes from student to student. These dynamics tend to be unstabl...