Ski Rental Online Competitive Ratio
Compare an online rent-or-buy rule with an offline decision that knows the season length.
Free theory articleCompare an online rent-or-buy rule with an offline decision that knows the season length.
Concept & interpretation
The ski rental problem illustrates the challenge of online decision-making where future demand is entirely unknown. A deterministic policy dictates renting skis until the accumulated rental cost equals the purchase price minus one, and then buying the skis on the next day.
Interactive Experiment
Try adjusting the Buy price and Ski days in the interactive model at https://riano.app/module/ski-rental-online-competitive-ratio.
- Set Buy price to 4.
- Set Ski days to 4 and observe the Online cost.