Chapter 4: Q16E (page 155)
The article 鈥淎 Model of Pedestrians鈥 Waiting Times for Street Crossings at Signalized Intersections鈥 (Transportation Research, \({\rm{2013: 17--28}}\)) suggested that under some circumstances the distribution of waiting time X could be modelled with the following pdf:
\({\rm{f(x;\theta ,\tau ) = }}\left\{ {\begin{array}{*{20}{c}}{\frac{{\rm{\theta }}}{{\rm{\tau }}}{{{\rm{(1 - x/\tau )}}}^{{\rm{\theta - 1}}}}}&{{\rm{0}} \le {\rm{x < \tau }}}\\{\rm{0}}&{{\rm{ otherwise }}}\end{array}} \right.\)
a. Graph \({\rm{f(x;\theta ,80)}}\) for the three cases \({\rm{\theta = 4,1}}\) and \({\rm{.5}}\) (these graphs appear in the cited article) and comment on their shapes. b. Obtain the cumulative distribution function of X. c. Obtain an expression for the median of the waiting time distribution. d. For the case \({\rm{\theta = 4,\tau = 80}}\) calculate \({\rm{P(50}} \le {\rm{X}} \le {\rm{70)}}\) without at this point doing any additional integration.
Short Answer
(a)The values are
\({\rm{\theta = 1}}\): Consistent
\({\rm{\theta > 1}}\): Right-handed skewed (or positively skewed)
\({\rm{\theta < 1}}\): Left-leaning (or negatively skewed)
(b)The function is
(c)The median is\({\rm{\tau - }}\frac{{\rm{\tau }}}{{{{\rm{2}}^{{\rm{1/\theta }}}}}}\).
(d) The probability is \({\rm{1}}{\rm{.95\% }}\).



