I don’t necessarily disagree with the gist of this post but there was one minor comment I found odd. It might just be my ignorance (I am not a transit person and have always been bad at algebraic geometry):
> Amtrak can and should fully replace its senior management with people who know how to run a modern intercity railroads, who are not Americans. But then middle management will still think it knows better and refuse to learn what a tropical algebra is or how it is significant for rail schedule planning.
Are transit middle-managers in Europe really applying tropical algebra to rail problems? My understanding is that the mathematical field of tropical algebra didn’t really exist until the 80s, and the research application to control theory is a 2010-era development. It strikes me as very strange to expect anyone who isn’t a PhD in math or operations research to even understand the algebraic geometry required, let alone apply it to a real problem.
But I suppose 30 years ago people would have said the same thing about linear programming. So maybe I am behind the times.
> Amtrak can and should fully replace its senior management with people who know how to run a modern intercity railroads, who are not Americans. But then middle management will still think it knows better and refuse to learn what a tropical algebra is or how it is significant for rail schedule planning.
Are transit middle-managers in Europe really applying tropical algebra to rail problems? My understanding is that the mathematical field of tropical algebra didn’t really exist until the 80s, and the research application to control theory is a 2010-era development. It strikes me as very strange to expect anyone who isn’t a PhD in math or operations research to even understand the algebraic geometry required, let alone apply it to a real problem.
But I suppose 30 years ago people would have said the same thing about linear programming. So maybe I am behind the times.