Taxi distance convolution on a rectangular road cycle

ID: taxi-distance-convolution-on-a-rectangular-road-cycle

For a taxi starting at any vertex of a rectangle with side lengths , a uniform pickup vertex gives approach-distance law uniform on . Conditional on that pickup, a uniform distinct destination gives passenger-distance law uniform on , independent of the pickup vertex. Hence the two distance variables are independent despite sharing that vertex. Their convolution has twelve equally likely pairs. Its mean is and its variance is . Repeated numerical sums combine their multiplicities when some distances coincide.

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