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MIT team’s school-bus algorithm could save $5M and 1M bus miles

wsj.com

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Re: MIT team’s school-bus algorithm could save $5M and 1M bus miles

#11

Post by jmull »

It will be interesting to see how it works out in real life.

As the article notes, they've tried this before and the algorithmically generated route map didn't work well in real life. Assuming the algorithm was good, the issue was probably that it didn't incorporate significant real-life factors.

Perhaps they are getting more sophisticated though, by having the people who have been doing this work by hand review the results and make adjustments (as the article says, e.g., at first the algorithm allowed big busses on narrow streets, which apparently doesn't work well).

Speaking of the people who have been doing the route maps manually... they seem to have been doing an impressive job since the algorithm is expected to be only 4% better.

Re: MIT team’s school-bus algorithm could save $5M and 1M bus miles

#12

Post by losteverything »

chrisbennet wrote: post #10

Since this forum for founder/entrepreneur types, let me inject a bit of caution from my own experience with dealing with government organizations: If you save a business organization money, they appreciate it. If you save a government organization money, the next year the "savings" is likely to be deducted from their budget. They don't get to benefit from the savings and thus their motivations aren't what you might e…

The part that always blew me away about governmentese was when i realized that "budget cuts" meant the program isnt getting less money than last fiscal year, but their increase YoY has been reduced!

Re: MIT team’s school-bus algorithm could save $5M and 1M bus miles

#13

Post by limaoscarjuliet »

towndrunk wrote: post #8

Kind of off topic but... why is no one converting school buses to electric? Seems like a perfect opportunity. Lots of space for batteries. High torque. Short runs in the morning and afternoon. Think of how many diesel school busses there are across just the USA every morning.

Likely for the same reason Tesla was really, really expensive until now and is just reasonably expensive now with model 3. The initial investment plus extra funds to build charging infrastructure is likely the reason why we cannot have it yet. Also, if you think about it, each school bus might not be driving enough miles to make up for the cost of conversion.

Re: MIT team’s school-bus algorithm could save $5M and 1M bus miles

#14

Post by briandear »

chrisbennet wrote: post #10

Since this forum for founder/entrepreneur types, let me inject a bit of caution from my own experience with dealing with government organizations: If you save a business organization money, they appreciate it. If you save a government organization money, the next year the "savings" is likely to be deducted from their budget. They don't get to benefit from the savings and thus their motivations aren't what you might e…

Agreed. This is why we need zero-based budgeting. Force organizations to justify every dollar every year rather than just using previous years as the starting point.

Re: MIT team’s school-bus algorithm could save $5M and 1M bus miles

#15

Post by drej »

chrisbennet wrote: post #10

Since this forum for founder/entrepreneur types, let me inject a bit of caution from my own experience with dealing with government organizations: If you save a business organization money, they appreciate it. If you save a government organization money, the next year the "savings" is likely to be deducted from their budget. They don't get to benefit from the savings and thus their motivations aren't what you might e…

> If you save a business organization money, they appreciate it.

Is that based on past experience?

Re: MIT team’s school-bus algorithm could save $5M and 1M bus miles

#16

Post by dclowd9901 »

towndrunk wrote: post #8

Kind of off topic but... why is no one converting school buses to electric? Seems like a perfect opportunity. Lots of space for batteries. High torque. Short runs in the morning and afternoon. Think of how many diesel school busses there are across just the USA every morning.

Ask Bluebird; they have the market cornered. My guess is they have no need to innovate, so they do not.

Re: MIT team’s school-bus algorithm could save $5M and 1M bus miles

#17

Post by jtuente »

towndrunk wrote: post #8

Kind of off topic but... why is no one converting school buses to electric? Seems like a perfect opportunity. Lots of space for batteries. High torque. Short runs in the morning and afternoon. Think of how many diesel school busses there are across just the USA every morning.

As with everything else, time and money. Most schools don't have the funds to replace their fleet of buses because of (the next big thing) and will have to do it as the old ones die off. Add to that the higher cost of electric vehicles and it doesn't look as immediately appealing.

Re: MIT team’s school-bus algorithm could save $5M and 1M bus miles

#18

Post by dclowd9901 »

briandear wrote: post #14
chrisbennet wrote: post #10

Since this forum for founder/entrepreneur types, let me inject a bit of caution from my own experience with dealing with government organizations: If you save a business organization money, they appreciate it. If you save a government organization money, the next year the "savings" is likely to be deducted from their budget. They don't get to benefit from the savings and thus their motivations aren't what you might e…

Agreed. This is why we need zero-based budgeting. Force organizations to justify every dollar every year rather than just using previous years as the starting point.

That doesn't work either: you get situations like the TSA artificially backing up airport security lines to "necessitate" budget increases.

They should incentivize efficiency. In government, it would be citizen impact per employee. If you have more, you make more money, if you have less, you make less.

Re: MIT team’s school-bus algorithm could save $5M and 1M bus miles

#20

Post by jasoninprivate »

towndrunk wrote: post #8

Kind of off topic but... why is no one converting school buses to electric? Seems like a perfect opportunity. Lots of space for batteries. High torque. Short runs in the morning and afternoon. Think of how many diesel school busses there are across just the USA every morning.

I can't speak on behalf of everyone, but my mother has been a school bus driver for the past 20 years. I'm not so sure I would consider the runs short. She drives at least 8 hours a day, with a break in the middle. There isn't much extra space in her bus for batteries.

In addition, the lifetime of a bus isn't measured in the same way cars are. They are purchased once a decade, never retrofitted, and not every bus is replaced with that purchase. With that in mind it will probably be another 2 sales cycles before we see any.

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