Question

A traffic light near a museum is green for 30 seconds, yellow for 5 seconds, and red for 15 seconds. If 8 vehicles approach the signal, the probability that 3 of them are stopped by the red light is .

Answer 1

Answer:

  about 0.254

Step-by-step explanation:

The light is red for 0.3 of the period, so that is the probability one car is stopped. Probability 3 cars are stopped and 5 are not is 0.3^3·0.7^5, about 0.004538. In the group of 8 cars, there are 56 different ways 3 of the cars can be stopped, so your overall probability could be 56·0.004538 ≈ 0.254.

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Comment on the question

Many factors go into a driver's decision to stop at a light. Many factors go into the distribution of arrival times at a light. Here, the problem is only tractable if we assume that cars arrive at the light individually and at random times with respect to the light's fixed 50-second cycle. (This is possibly the case only early in the morning hours when traffic is at its lightest (not associated with bar closings or night shift changes).)