In short: open jamescollado.com/projects/metro/ to run the simulation.
I have been toying with the idea of using a browser-embedded Javascript engine as a distributed computing platform. It is clear that it is not efficient as it would be too high above the hardware. However browsers are ubiquitous nowadays and they are very easy to use.
Can a large base of general purpose browser-enabled distributed devices do useful work?
As a little weekend project I set out to build a task-specific distributed simulation to find the best path in one of the largest metro networks in the world.
The simulation performs virtual journeys in the metro network, trying to optimize a number of parameters, travel time and stations hops among them.
The engine has some intelligence built into it. It will avoid backtracking or visiting stations/routes twice if possible.
You can help with the simulation by simply opening the following link and leaving it running in your browser: