Each of two buses carries passengers from a depot to various destinations and return for another trip with a round trip time very nearly equal to R. The buses are run by independent drivers, however, who make no attempt to coordinate their schedules. Actually, one bus runs slightly faster than the other so that over many trips the fraction of trips that the second bus leaves within a time t after the first bus is t/R , 0 < t < R. In effect, the times between departures of the buses are random, with a uniform distribution over the interval 0 < t < R.
If passengers arrive at the depot at a constant rate, what is the average time that a passenger must wait for the next bus? Compare this with the wait if the headways are controlled so as to be R/2.