Random 15 Championship 2018/19: Round 4

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dstock17
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Re: Random 15 Championship 2018/19: Round 4

Post by dstock17 »

Going Underground wrote: 10 Mar 2019, 10:46 Parkrun -TBC - xcooler123, GU - Suggested - Hilly Fields (Ladywell station)
Post-Parkrun Spoons - TBC - xcooler123, GU, A2(?) - Suggested - The Pommelers Rest (10 mins from London Bridge)
R15 - xcooler123, GU, A2, michael_churchill
Er you should add suggested by me ally pally
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Re: Random 15 Championship 2018/19: Round 4

Post by Going Underground »

dstock17 wrote: 10 Mar 2019, 21:30
Going Underground wrote: 10 Mar 2019, 10:46 Parkrun -TBC - xcooler123, GU - Suggested - Hilly Fields (Ladywell station)
Post-Parkrun Spoons - TBC - xcooler123, GU, A2(?) - Suggested - The Pommelers Rest (10 mins from London Bridge)
R15 - xcooler123, GU, A2, michael_churchill
Er you should add suggested by me ally pally
Or parkrun suggested by Andi - Ally Pally
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dstock17
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Re: Random 15 Championship 2018/19: Round 4

Post by dstock17 »

To be honest scrap my suggestion I have Friday off so I'm going uber tourism again so London doesn't appeal to me.
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roblo97
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Re: Random 15 Championship 2018/19: Round 4

Post by roblo97 »

Really sorry but I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to make it owing to work comitments. :(
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Re: Random 15 Championship 2018/19: Round 4

Post by Going Underground »

Going Underground wrote: 11 Mar 2019, 12:50
dstock17 wrote: 10 Mar 2019, 21:30
Going Underground wrote: 10 Mar 2019, 10:46 Parkrun -TBC - xcooler123, GU - Suggested - Hilly Fields (Ladywell station)
Post-Parkrun Spoons - TBC - xcooler123, GU, A2(?) - Suggested - The Pommelers Rest (10 mins from London Bridge)
R15 - xcooler123, GU, A2, michael_churchill
Er you should add suggested by me ally pally
Or parkrun suggested by Andi - Ally Pally
Ally Pally scrapped
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Re: Random 15 Championship 2018/19: Round 4

Post by michael_churchill »

I was wondering... Is there an official policy on the use of electronic aids in Random 15? For a while, I've been working on general "Metro" route planning software, on a purely personal basis. Calculating a route for multiple stops, the "travelling salesman problem", what you need for a Random 15, is just about ready for testing in the field. If there are no objections, I'll be bringing a tablet PC on Saturday and giving it a go.

If you're interested, my software is no more sophisticated than checking every permutation of what order to visit the stations in and finding which one is quickest. It can't check all possibilities and find a perfect solution, because it would take too long. There are 87 billion different orders you can visit 15 stations (with a fixed start) and that would literally take weeks. It can do up to 9 stations in a reasonable time, around a minute, so as a compromise it will find a route to cover the 5 stations which are closest to the start, then another from there to cover the other 9 stations. I reckon that the fewer stations you need to separate off, the closer you'll get to a perfect solution.

The maths... At the start there are 14 stations that could be visited first, then 13 stations that could be visited second, then 12 stations that could be visited third, and so on. So the number of permutations is 14x13x12..., which is known as "14 factorial" or 14! and equals more than 87 billion. For 9 stations the number is the much smaller 9! which equals 362,880. Plus another 5!=120 for the first 5 stations that are considered separately makes a manageable task.
xcooler123
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Re: Random 15 Championship 2018/19: Round 4

Post by xcooler123 »

michael_churchill wrote: 12 Mar 2019, 11:55 I was wondering... Is there an official policy on the use of electronic aids in Random 15? For a while, I've been working on general "Metro" route planning software, on a purely personal basis. Calculating a route for multiple stops, the "travelling salesman problem", what you need for a Random 15, is just about ready for testing in the field. If there are no objections, I'll be bringing a tablet PC on Saturday and giving it a go.

If you're interested, my software is no more sophisticated than checking every permutation of what order to visit the stations in and finding which one is quickest. It can't check all possibilities and find a perfect solution, because it would take too long. There are 87 billion different orders you can visit 15 stations (with a fixed start) and that would literally take weeks. It can do up to 9 stations in a reasonable time, around a minute, so as a compromise it will find a route to cover the 5 stations which are closest to the start, then another from there to cover the other 9 stations. I reckon that the fewer stations you need to separate off, the closer you'll get to a perfect solution.

The maths... At the start there are 14 stations that could be visited first, then 13 stations that could be visited second, then 12 stations that could be visited third, and so on. So the number of permutations is 14x13x12..., which is known as "14 factorial" or 14! and equals more than 87 billion. For 9 stations the number is the much smaller 9! which equals 362,880. Plus another 5!=120 for the first 5 stations that are considered separately makes a manageable task.
I would be interested to see how this compares to the "plan on the spot" technique, especially as it only takes into consideration the Tube and not LO, DLR, buses, etc (unless I have missed that?). These can definitely cut down time in certain areas. At the end of the day different people have different ways of approaching the planning aspect of R15 and that is where a chunk of the fun lies.

Just a thought, when the Tube goes completely AWOL how do you deal with that (i.e. the software can do that or revert back to "planning on the spot"?)
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greatkingrat
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Re: Random 15 Championship 2018/19: Round 4

Post by greatkingrat »

I seem to remember Hakan bringing a laptop along to one of the very early R15 challenges to plan his route?
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Re: Random 15 Championship 2018/19: Round 4

Post by michael_churchill »

xcooler123 wrote: 12 Mar 2019, 12:37
I would be interested to see how this compares to the "plan on the spot" technique, especially as it only takes into consideration the Tube and not LO, DLR, buses, etc (unless I have missed that?). These can definitely cut down time in certain areas. At the end of the day different people have different ways of approaching the planning aspect of R15 and that is where a chunk of the fun lies.

Just a thought, when the Tube goes completely AWOL how do you deal with that (i.e. the software can do that or revert back to "planning on the spot"?)
Well, the thing is that I've written the software not just for the London Underground - you could enter the data to represent any metro-style transport network. For London, I've entered everything that's on the "tube" map, so including DLR, Trams, Overground and TfL Rail... even the Emirates Air Line! No buses though!

If known, you can enter distance and travelling time between all stations (different times in each direction is possible) and I've done that from the working timetables. So you can ask for the quickest route based on time or the shortest based on distance. If you can't enter distance or time for the whole network, you can only get the shortest route based on the number of stops.

You can also add walking interchanges between stops. You only have to enter distance (and you can enter your own directions) and you can set your walking pace and have the program calculate the time from that. I've entered all the walking interchanges that are now marked on the map with dotted lines, and added all the other OSIs that aren't on the map.

You can also set a global "time to allow for changing" used when changing lines to allow for getting to a different platform and waiting an average time for the next train. That defaults to 5 minutes, but I'd like to have a different setting for less-
frequent lines like Overground.

One thing I haven't done is allow the user to specify temporary closures. So, on Saturday, it could potentially decide to
follow the Circle/H&C between Paddington and Hammersmith.

Also, because it doesn't work from actual timetables, it has no concept of part-time limitations. So, it will always suggest the District to Olympia, that you can take the Charing Cross branch of the Northern beyond Kennington and take a direct train from Central London to Mill Hill East.
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Re: Random 15 Championship 2018/19: Round 4

Post by Going Underground »

greatkingrat wrote: 12 Mar 2019, 15:27 I seem to remember Hakan bringing a laptop along to one of the very early R15 challenges to plan his route?
Yes and Ric loaded the stations from memory and missed one out! That was an evening "pre Z1" warm up event
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RJSRdg
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Re: Random 15 Championship 2018/19: Round 4

Post by RJSRdg »

michael_churchill wrote: 12 Mar 2019, 16:38 So, it will always suggest .... that you can ... take a direct train from Central London to Mill Hill East.
You can! Just never when you actually want to! (I think on one R15 I either saw or rode on 5 MHE-bound services, a day after GU had had a FNC break down because he couldn't get there!)
272 stations in 18:30:32
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Re: Random 15 Championship 2018/19: Round 4

Post by michael_churchill »

RJSRdg wrote: 12 Mar 2019, 22:01
michael_churchill wrote: 12 Mar 2019, 16:38 So, it will always suggest .... that you can ... take a direct train from Central London to Mill Hill East.
You can! Just never when you actually want to! (I think on one R15 I either saw or rode on 5 MHE-bound services, a day after GU had had a FNC break down because he couldn't get there!)
On a Saturday? I didn't think there were any direct trains to Mill Hill East at weekends, only the shuttle from Finchley Central.
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greatkingrat
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Re: Random 15 Championship 2018/19: Round 4

Post by greatkingrat »

The first through train to Mill Hill East on a Saturday is the 2317 Kennington - Mill Hill East (via CX), arriving 2351. Admittedly that is probably not much use for an R15!
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alexmcmotor
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Re: Random 15 Championship 2018/19: Round 4

Post by alexmcmotor »

Parkrun -TBC - xcooler123, GU - Suggested - Hilly Fields (Ladywell station)
Post-Parkrun Spoons - TBC - xcooler123, GU, A2(?) - Suggested - The Pommelers Rest (10 mins from London Bridge)
R15 - xcooler123, GU, A2, michael_churchill, alexmcmotor + Kat

roblo97 wrote: 11 Mar 2019, 22:49 Really sorry but I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to make it owing to work comitments.
I bet you're bloody working on Sebring aren't you :P when do you start getting +1s on hospitality tickets? ;)
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roblo97
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Re: Random 15 Championship 2018/19: Round 4

Post by roblo97 »

alexmcmotor wrote: 14 Mar 2019, 03:39
roblo97 wrote: 11 Mar 2019, 22:49 Really sorry but I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to make it owing to work comitments.
I bet you're bloody working on Sebring aren't you :P when do you start getting +1s on hospitality tickets? ;)
Yeah, I was working on Sebring for both WEC and IMSA! I don't know about getting hospitality tickets sadly though!
R15 PB: 2:23.23
DLR PB: 2:00:50
Bottle PB: 02:30:30
Tramlink PB: 1:55.37 (Cheers David!)
Triple Crown: 7:00.13
FNC: 18:42:50 (Cheers Andi and Josh!)
Park: 8:29:35
Z1: 02:45:54
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Parkrun PB: 26 minutes something
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