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Prizes and distinctions
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Economics
Prix Laplace 1933 and Prix Rivot
from the Académie des sciences
for his passing out rank (n°1)
at the École polytechnique.
Prix Charles Dupin from
the Académie des sciences
morales et politiques (1954).
Lanchester Prize from the Johns
Hopkins University and
the Operations Research Society of
America (1958).
Prix Joseph Dutens from
the Académie des sciences
morales et politiques (1959).
Prix Robert Blanché from
the Académie des sciences
morales et Politiques (1983).
Grand prix Guido Zerilli Marimo
from the Académie des sciences
morales et politiques (1984).
Special jury prize, on the occasion
of the creation of the Prix Dupuitde-Lesseps
(1987).
Nobel Prize for Economics (1988).
Physics
Prix Galabert from the Société
française d’astronautique (1959).
Laureate of the Gravity Research
Foundation, 1959, USA.
Passenger: how to estimate the cost of
a journey for a passenger boarding a train at
Calais station to travel to Paris? This ‘paradox’
is only one in the sense which is given to it by
decision theory. It evokes the diffi culty
of determining the price of a passenger’s train
ticket from an estimation of its marginal cost.
The problem is as follows. As soon as there
is at least one passenger on board a train,
the train has to leave. A passenger in Calais
goes to the station. He wishes to travel
to Paris. He boards the train leaving
for the capital, but he has not yet bought his
ticket. He notices that there are people
in the compartment and he waits. Just before
the departure of the train, he observes
that several seats remain unoccupied.
He sits down in one of these. When the ticket
inspector passes and asks him to show his
ticket, he argues that the train was anyway
obliged to leave once a passenger had
boarded it, and that it costs the transport
company no more to run the train when
it is full than when there are only one
or two people aboard. Consequently, as his
presence on board does not change
the situation, there is no justifi cation in asking
him to pay for a ticket. In conclusion, of
all the passengers present on board the train,
the only one who should pay for his ticket
is the fi rst to have boarded the trainset…
The paradox is resolved by employing
the concept of marginal development cost.
If the train is not full, the cost generated by
the presence of this additional passenger
can correspond to the price of the additional
energy consumed to transport him,
the cleaning and ticket inspection costs
that he personally generates, as well as
the additional wear caused to equipment.
These costs will a priori be low.
If however the train is full, this passenger
necessitates the mobilisation of an additional
car… If the maximum number of cars
that can be towed by the locomotive or that
can be received by platforms has already
been reached, this additional passenger
requires putting into service a second train…
If the Calais-Paris line is saturated
by the existing trains, the operator is then
obliged to build a second line…
The same event cannot therefore be
assessed in the same way if
the circumstances in which it occurs and
the type of decision that it generates, vary.
According to the availability or not of
various resources (cars, trains or lines…),
the appraisal of the costs generated by
this additional passenger will differ according
to whether they are assessed by the ticket
inspector, the guard, the line manager
or the network director.
The answer proposed by Maurice Allais is
based on the mode of addition of these costs,
in response to the points of view of
the different economic actors whose analyses
then become complementary. Therefore,
the decision is also the responsibility of
the additional passenger: if his late arrival
obliges mobilisation of additional physical
resources such as a car or a train,
the price at marginal cost indicates to him
the enormous weight which he is going to be
imposing on everyone, whether this be for
other passengers or for the entire community.
Faced by the true fi nancial cost of his wish
to board the train, he can decide knowingly
to maintain his choice or to wait for a following
train – which will be less expensive.
Pricing at marginal cost therefore sends
an ‘economic signal’ to each consumer
and each actor, and helps them to adopt
more rational behaviour with regard
to scarce resources.