If you've committed as many traffic infractions as I have, you find yourself taking the bus a lot. In the process, you'll encounter an existential question that the great minds of our generations have pondered and quickly forgotten: If the bus is late on my way to get KFC, should I start walking or wait for the late, drunk bus driver?
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a solution: Waiting around for the bus is almost always the smarter choice. Harvard mathematician Scott Kominers and friends devised a formula to measure the optimal time that you should hang out waiting for a late bus at each stop before deciding to walk. When both options are reasonably attractive, you're better served by waiting than by going on ahead. The formula only breaks down in extreme cases — say, when the time interval between buses is more than an hour, or when your destination is a kilometer or less away.
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