A christmas parking lot problem

Abstract

Based on much personal experience over many Christmas shopping campaigns, and personal dread at the prospect of further participating in another Christmas shopping expedition, I have designed simple models of such situations in order to see if merchants are indeed maximizing their total profit. Such an investigation seems to me to be a much better use of my time than to be forced to participate in the Christmas parking lot roulette. This brief paper shows how one can investigate the Christmas parking lot problem quantitatively from the merchant's perspective without the need to be involved personally, a major blessing from my viewpoint. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.