Achieving Maximum Utilization in Optimal Time for Learning or Convergence in the Kolkata Paise Restaurant Problem

Abstract

The objective of the KPR agents are to learn themselves in the minimum (learning) time to have maximum success or utilization probability ($f$). A dictator can easily solve the problem with $f = 1$ in no time, by asking every one to form a queue and go to the respective restaurant, resulting in no fluctuation and full utilization from the first day (convergence time $\tau = 0$). It has already been shown that if each agent chooses randomly the restaurants, $f = 1 - e^{-1} \simeq 0.63$ (where $e \simeq 2.718$ denotes the Euler number) in zero time ($\tau = 0$). With the only available information about yesterday's crowd size in the restaurant visited by the agent (as assumed for the rest of the strategies studied here), the crowd avoiding (CA) strategies can give higher values of $f$ but also of $\tau$. Several numerical studies of modified learning strategies actually indicated increased value of $f = 1 - \alpha$ for $\alpha \to 0$, with $\tau \sim 1/\alpha$. We show here using Monte Carlo technique, a modified Greedy Crowd Avoiding (GCA) Strategy can assure full utilization ($f = 1$) in convergence time $\tau \simeq eN$, with of course non-zero probability for an even larger convergence time. All these observations suggest that the strategies with single step memory of the individuals can never collectively achieve full utilization ($f = 1$) in finite convergence time and perhaps the maximum possible utilization that can be achieved is about eighty percent ($f \simeq 0.80$) in an optimal time $\tau$ of order ten, even when $N$ the number of customers or of the restaurants goes to infinity.