In a similar manner, the number of workers, elevators, and floors could be taken from local contexts. The answers will depend on the nature of the building and the time of day. Without analysis, it will not be at all clear which strategy is best under specific conditions. A different example that students can easily explore in detail is the problem of situating a fire station or an emergency room in a city. A location that minimizes the maximum time of response may not produce the least average time of response.
Commuters often face similar choices in selecting routes to work.
They may want to minimize the average time, the maximum time, or perhaps the variance, so that their departure and arrival times are more predictable. Most of the optimization conditions discussed so far have been expressed in units of time. When one of the units is money, it is easy to find expensive strategies but impossible to find ones that have virtually no cost. Clearly some compromise is necessary. Working with models of different solutions can help students understand the consequences of some of the compromises.