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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

#21

Post by chrisbennet »

drej wrote: post #15
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?

Yes, they appreciated it so much they'll paid me money. :-)

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

#22

Post by briffle »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #16
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.

They have just announced electric buses last month [0]. They also have CNG and propane powered models.

[0] https://www.blue-bird.com/blue-bird/Press-Releases/Blue-Bird...

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

#23

Post by payne92 »

I worked with a startup years ago that did these kinds of optimizations (for deliveries). The logistics & transportation market in the US is about a TRILLION dollars -- small optimizations can make a HUGE impact.

The challenge for practical implementations is that there are lots and lots and lots of optimization factors that are very hard to account for. Often, you don't even know what they are until you try to automate the process.

For example: preferring small buses on side streets, as the article mentions. Or, knowing about a major work project in an area (to avoid for the coming year), or specific left turns that are tough for a bus. Also, highly optimized schedules usually have (by definition) much less "slack" in the overall system, and are less resilient to real world changes and variations.

My point: in my experience, there can often be a significant gap between enthusiastic technologists (myself included) and real-world implementations.

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

#24

Post by throwaway2016a »

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…

Interestingly in this case it seems it was the government that initiated the search for cost savings:

> In hopes of spending less this year, the school system offered $15,000 in prize money in a contest that challenged competitors to reduce the number of buses.

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

#25

Post by payne92 »

drej wrote: post #15
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?

I didn't write that original comment, but yes, my experience is that businesses are VERY happy to find ways to save money.

As they say, a marginal dollar saved "drops straight to the bottom line" (profits).

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

#26

Post by rce123 »

How do they arrive at only 20,000 lb carbon emissions (presumably CO2), from 1M bus miles traveled? According to the EIA, 1 gallon of diesel produces ~22.4lbs of CO2. Even assuming ridiculously optimistic MPG ratings on the buses, these numbers don't seem consistent with each other.

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

#27

Post by throwaway2016a »

yedpodtrzitko wrote: post #19

Locked article. So I am just curious - is that a different algorithm than the one with "no turning left" rule which saves money to UPS?

I was thinking that too. Surprisingly, if the image in the article is actually accurate (it might not be, it's probably just a graphic designer's illustration) then the route that was generated actually takes exclusively left hand turns.

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

#28

Post by trendia »

payne92 wrote: post #23

I worked with a startup years ago that did these kinds of optimizations (for deliveries). The logistics & transportation market in the US is about a TRILLION dollars -- small optimizations can make a HUGE impact. The challenge for practical implementations is that there are lots and lots and lots of optimization factors that are very hard to account for. Often, you don't even know what they are until you try to autom…

Another example: a lot of rural areas have patches of gravel roads. It's not obvious from Google maps where the roads go from paved to gravel (and they sometimes do it in random sections).

Naively looking at a map, you'd think a roundabout route had potential to be shorter, but not realize the road was gravel.

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

#29

Post by jeddawson »

cropsieboss wrote: post #7

Pickup and delivery optimizing algorithms have been optimizing stuff in private businesses for years. What do you think what kinds of algorithm makes schedules for trashbin collection, newspaper delivery, sodapop machines etc. If you aren't ondemand and there's multiple drivers there is someone who can optimize it to (almost) optimality. This is a pickup & delivery problem and the algorithms exist and work in practic…

Have you used any that are actually effective? Please share if so :)

I work within the trash collection industry and we've tried several different optimization schemes that in general don't come close to optimal efficiency. The marketing for a lot of the optimization companies would lead you to believe that they're able to unlock a lot more efficiency than they actually deliver. Our clients that have applied algorithms to optimize their routes quickly reverted to human optimization since the algorithms fail to provide any benefit and typically require tremendous effort to get started.

I would love to discover an algorithm that is able to consistently provide actually optimized collection routes without hand holding!

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

#30

Post by towndrunk »

jasoninprivate wrote: post #20
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…

I was thinking underneath the bus was the perfect space for battery packs. Once you remove the gas tank and exhaust etc there would be plenty of room.
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