How Richard Applies Operations Research to Solve Real-World Challenges!
Across disciplines, science, business, design, or philosophy, one powerful trait unites great thinkers: the ability to frame problems clearly and then tackle them systematically. It’s not just about intelligence or experience; it’s about perception. Those who can look at chaos and find the hidden structure, who can ask the right questions before chasing answers, are the ones who drive meaningful progress.
This philosophy summaries the career of Dr. Richard C. Larson, affectionately known as “Dr. Queue,” whose pioneering work in operations research has transformed both urban systems and global education.
Joining the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) faculty in 1969, Dr. Richard has dedicated over five decades to applying analytical rigor to real-world challenges. His early work, including the development of the Hypercube Queueing Model, revolutionized emergency response strategies, optimizing the deployment of services like police and ambulance systems.
Beyond urban analytics, Dr. Richard has been a trailblazer in educational innovation. As the principal investigator of MIT BLOSSOMS (Blended Learning Open Source Science or Math Studies), he has championed accessible, interactive STEM education worldwide. His commitment to fostering a “joy of learning” emphasizes critical thinking over rote memorization, inspiring students to become lifelong learners.
Dr. Richard’s contributions have been recognized with numerous accolades, including the Frederick W. Lanchester Prize, the INFORMS President’s Award, and the Daniel Berg Lifetime Achievement Medal. His leadership roles, such as serving as president of both the Operations Research Society of America and INFORMS, reflect his influence in shaping the field.
A Lifelong Journey at MIT
After graduating from Needham High School, Richard was admitted to MIT at the age of 18. He embarked on his academic journey there, eventually earning his bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD. MIT became his lifelong home, and he never left.
During his PhD studies, his advisor, Professor Al Drake, suggested, “Dick, why don’t you stay on as assistant professor for a couple of years before you go off and make your millions?” This remark sparked an unexpected thought. Richard hadn’t considered the possibility of a faculty position at MIT, but he decided to take up the offer. Starting as an assistant professor, he worked his way up to associate professor, then full professor, and now holds a chaired professorship. Recently, he even contributed to MIT by funding the Larson Endowed Chair, which established a new fully chaired professorship.
Throughout his career at MIT, Richard’s academic interests have led him across five different departments. He began in electrical engineering, then branched out into urban studies, planning, and civil and environmental engineering, before settling at the Institute for Data Systems and Society. This department reflects his work, which focuses on data systems and society. His research, writing, and collaborations with students have mostly centered around public sector applications, particularly with cities. For example, much of his expertise has been devoted to New York City, with less focus on the private sector.
A Passion for Understanding Life’s Models
Richard’s early interest in physics started in high school, where he found himself much more drawn to it than to chemistry or biology. He excelled in the subject, achieving a perfect score on the SAT physics test, which played a role in his admission to MIT.
He views operations research as the “physics of the world in which we live.” Whether it’s observing the flow of traffic at a stoplight, managing the inventory of food in one’s home, or analyzing the queues in daily life, operations research mirrors the models that govern these everyday scenarios. This realization led him to fall in love with the field, especially after being introduced to it by his advisor, Al Drake.
Operations research, Richard believes, has the unique ability to apply to a wide range of disciplines, from civil and environmental engineering to urban studies and management. This versatility allows one to move horizontally across different fields, never confined to a single academic silo. Over his 50-plus years at MIT, Richard has held five different academic positions, embodying his commitment to exploring the broad applications of operations research.
The Hypercube Queuing Model and New York City’s 9-11 System
Richard’s work has significantly shaped the field of operations research, especially through his contributions to the 9-11 system in New York City and his invention of the hypercube queuing model. The 9-11 system, which was newly implemented in the late 1960s, revolutionized emergency communication in New York City.
Prior to its introduction, residents had to dial over 20 different emergency numbers, which varied by location and type of emergency. The 9-11 system streamlined this into a single, unified emergency number. However, in its early days, there were significant delays in response times. Richard, still a graduate student at the time, noticed complaints in the New York Times about the slow response from the 9-11 service.
In response to these concerns, Richard volunteered to work with two lieutenants at the New York City Police Headquarters, where he applied operations research queuing models to improve the scheduling of operators. By carefully analyzing data, he was able to devise a scheduling system that significantly reduced delays across different hours of the day. The result was a system that balanced the load of incoming calls, minimizing wait times no matter the time or day. Remarkably, Richard’s recommendation was implemented within just seven days of his presentation to the police commissioner, marking one of the quickest implementations of any of his suggestions.
Richard’s next major achievement was the creation of the hypercube queuing model, which he dedicated two full years to developing. This model, an extension of Erlang’s queuing models from 1919, introduced a new way of handling queuing systems by considering all individual servers in the system. For example, with 10 servers, the model accounts for 2 to the power of 10 different states of busy and idle servers, creating a highly complex 10-dimensional state space.
To develop this model, Richard worked tirelessly, even dreaming about technical problems related to it. One such instance occurred when he struggled with a problem late at night, only to dream about the solution, which he immediately wrote down upon waking. The model required a level of precision that left him unable to delegate the programming work, so Richard personally wrote the entire program in C, marking it as the last computer program he would ever write. His dedication and innovation in developing the hypercube queuing model are widely regarded as one of his greatest technical achievements.
Overcoming Initial Resistance in Implementing the 911 Emergency System
When asked about the challenges faced during the implementation of the 911 emergency system, Richard recounted an early encounter with skepticism. The police commissioner had been misinformed by his lieutenants, who assured him that there was no issue with the 911 delays and that the letters to the editor were inaccurate. Armed with a PowerPoint presentation filled with colorful charts, Richard presented his findings. However, the commissioner quickly interrupted, dismissing the charts as “Easter Bunny charts,” which, he claimed, didn’t reflect the real situation.
The commissioner turned to the lieutenants, whom Richard had worked closely with for a month at the police headquarters, asking them to clarify the matter. Faced with the truth, the lieutenants reluctantly confirmed that everything Richard had presented was accurate. This revelation prompted the commissioner to take immediate action, and within seven days, all of Richard’s suggestions were implemented. The rapid response was a testament to the power of presenting clear, factual evidence, even in the face of initial resistance.
Invisible Power of Operations Research
During his presidency at INFORMS, one of the biggest challenges encountered was promoting the field of operations research. Richard views his greatest accomplishment as leading the effort to merge two influential organizations: ORSA (the Operations Research Society of America) and TIMS (the Institute for Management Science). ORSA, primarily composed of engineers and mathematicians, and TIMS, made up mostly of people from management schools, were combined to create INFORMS.
Richard believed that this merger was a perfect example of “one plus one equals five,” where the combination of these groups created a much stronger, more impactful organization for operations research and management science worldwide. He took the lead in merging these two organizations, and as a result, INFORMS became a very powerful entity in the field. He served as the first or second president of INFORMS and also briefly held the presidency of ORSA.
When discussing operations research, Richard has often referred to it as the world’s most important invisible profession. The reason behind this is that most people are unaware of the field’s existence. He explained that when he tells someone he works in operations research, the reaction is often confusion, people just don’t know what it means. He further elaborated by stating that operations research involves the study of operations people encounter daily, such as traffic lights, queuing systems, and shopping.
Despite its immense impact, operations research remains largely unknown to the general public. He argued that this invisibility does not diminish its importance. The field applies model-based and physics-oriented thinking to real-world problems, often improving systems without being recognized. For example, the Dijkstra algorithm, used in modern GPS systems to find the shortest route between two points, is an operations research algorithm, yet most people are unaware of its origins. According to Richard, this is why operations research remains the world’s most important invisible profession.
Unexpected Path to Criminology and Urban Systems
The spark that ignited an interest in criminology and urban systems was an accident, an experience that would shape a lifelong career. After graduating, Richard, who was a member of an independent fraternity on the MIT campus, was living off-campus in Boston. One evening, his fraternity hosted a mixer to introduce women to the men of the group. Upon attending, he noticed that the gender ratio was heavily skewed, with many more males than females present. Wanting to balance the numbers, he convinced two women to follow him to the fraternity house.
However, the decision turned out to be a mistake. The women, who were strangers to him, turned out to be professional thieves. They stole credit cards and cash from the purses of the other women at the party, taking advantage of the trusting environment where personal belongings were left in a coat room. At 1:30 a.m., Richard received a phone call informing him of the theft and the involvement of the two women he had brought. The devastation he felt for unknowingly facilitating the crime led him to delve deeply into criminology and criminal identification.
This experience, combined with his growing interest, led him to spend 200 hours riding along with the Boston Police Department, gaining firsthand experience in urban policing. His advisor encouraged him to collaborate with the Boston Police, which eventually led to his involvement in the Science and Technology Task Force of the President’s Crime Commission. He became the youngest member of the task force, a unique position due to his blend of operations research expertise and real-world police experience.
Reflecting on the incident years later, Richard remarked that if he ever met the two women again, he would take them out to dinner. Their actions, though negative at the time, were pivotal in shaping his future and guiding him toward a successful career in criminology, urban policing, and applying operations research to the public sector.
Most Impactful Research Contribution in Operations Research
Over a decades-long career at MIT, Richard considers his most impactful research contribution to be the hypercube queuing model. This model was groundbreaking, offering a novel approach that was significantly different from existing models. Today, it serves as the standard worldwide for modeling queuing systems with distinguishable servers. Additionally, he developed the queue inference engine, which, if invented today, would be classified as artificial intelligence (AI).
His work also includes a series of model-based activities and papers, many of which were collaborative efforts with students. Richard often involved students in his consulting firm during the summers, sending them to places like New York City where they had active consulting contracts.
These students returned with a renewed sense of purpose and excitement, having witnessed firsthand the real-world challenges they were tackling. One such example was a contract with New York City’s garbage collection system, which is likely the largest public sector waste collection and routing system in the world. The team even visited Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island, the world’s largest dump.
Richard would advise his students to spend a day at the landfill, observing the operation for 10 hours. He called it “boots on the ground,” a concept he often stressed when discussing operations research. Richard firmly believed that to truly understand and solve problems, one must go beyond the theoretical and engage directly with the real-world systems they aim to improve. This hands-on approach not only deepens understanding but also ensures that modeling and analysis are grounded in practical, relevant insights.
While many operations research professionals, including some colleagues at MIT, sometimes believe they can conduct research solely from their desks, Richard emphasized the importance of fieldwork. Around the world, some practitioners mistakenly treat operations research as applied mathematics, focusing on theorem proof rather than real-world application. For him, operations research requires a deep connection to the field, where theoretical knowledge is tied to real-world observations and challenges.