This reminds me of one of my favorite startups: https://remix.com
One City Saved $5M by Routing School Buses with an Algorithm
41–50 of 155 posts
Re: One City Saved $5M by Routing School Buses with an Algorithm
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh I remember this story. Back then when I dug into it, it was a real spin-versus-spin situation. Sure, when you introduce an approach that suddenly creates considerable inconvenience for some population of parents, sure they complain (no one likes having to drop off kids at ~ vaguely recalling ~ 10 am and pick at 5 pm, sheesh, it was something terrible). Some large portion of working people are fairly dependent thei…
For elementary students apparently “Hundreds of families were facing a 9:30 to 7:15 a.m. shift.” That’s a significant change in wake up time. Yeah, I’m not keen on that. It’s a non-starter.
Most substantive changes leave some fraction of stakeholders strictly worse off than before.
Re: One City Saved $5M by Routing School Buses with an Algorithm
#43Re: One City Saved $5M by Routing School Buses with an Algorithm
#44The end of the article notes the whole plan was scrapped based on parental feedback. More background: https://www.media.mit.edu/articles/what-the-boston-school-bu...
Thats not quite right - they did optimize bus routing and did save $5M. But when "the algorithm" suggested further improvements that required changing school start times (presumably so that the same bus and driver could work multiple routes to multiple schools), there was pushback and those changes weren't implemented.
That's really sad, there's so much to be gained by staggering school start and end times. Even in places where school buses aren't used - for instance, burden can be reduced on public transport among other things.
Re: One City Saved $5M by Routing School Buses with an Algorithm
#45> Running the algorithm in the summer of 2017 allowed for the system to eliminate 50 buses Or read another way: "Running the algorithm eliminated 50 jobs due to automation". This right here is what Yang is all about. The incredible loss of jobs due to technology.
I'm no economist, but that 5 million saved will be spent on other job creating activities. Perhaps it won't be a 1:1 replacement, but it's certainly not the elimination of 50 jobs.
> that 5 million saved will be spent on other job creating activities.
Will it? I mean, it might, but I wouldn't bet on it.
Re: One City Saved $5M by Routing School Buses with an Algorithm
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh I remember this story. Back then when I dug into it, it was a real spin-versus-spin situation. Sure, when you introduce an approach that suddenly creates considerable inconvenience for some population of parents, sure they complain (no one likes having to drop off kids at ~ vaguely recalling ~ 10 am and pick at 5 pm, sheesh, it was something terrible). Some large portion of working people are fairly dependent thei…
For elementary students apparently “Hundreds of families were facing a 9:30 to 7:15 a.m. shift.” That’s a significant change in wake up time. Yeah, I’m not keen on that. It’s a non-starter.
It's a change between years, and students moving to high school are already facing the exact same changes. The disparity can't be a non-starter because it already existed.
Those early hours exist. Someone has to take them (without doubling the bus fleet size). And it's better for the students if they have the early hours in elementary and not in high school.
Re: One City Saved $5M by Routing School Buses with an Algorithm
#47> Running the algorithm in the summer of 2017 allowed for the system to eliminate 50 buses Or read another way: "Running the algorithm eliminated 50 jobs due to automation". This right here is what Yang is all about. The incredible loss of jobs due to technology.
Not due to job automation.
They stopped paying people to drive in circles doing nothing.
Re: One City Saved $5M by Routing School Buses with an Algorithm
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Boston is different from this in a whole variety of ways. 1) Americans just in general tend to drive their kids to school dues to fear of child abductions and related ever-present paranoia. 2) Boston's transportation system is broken on just about every levels. The street organization is irrational, derived haphazardly from ad-hoc pre-auto paths. The public transit system was also built in an ad-hoc and is at level w…
Isn't Boston's climate very similar to most of Germany's?
Boston is at 42.3601 N longitude, which is actually pretty far south-ish compared to Germany.
For comparison, Munich, Germany is 48.1351° N, Barcelona, Spain is 41.3851° N
Re: One City Saved $5M by Routing School Buses with an Algorithm
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
For elementary students apparently “Hundreds of families were facing a 9:30 to 7:15 a.m. shift.” That’s a significant change in wake up time. Yeah, I’m not keen on that. It’s a non-starter.
It's a change between years, and students moving to high school are already facing the exact same changes. The disparity can't be a non-starter because it already existed. Those early hours exist. Someone has to take them (without doubling the bus fleet size). And it's better for the students if they have the early hours in elementary and not in high school.
Well yeah but when you choose a school, you choose it based on those criterias. They cannot just change the schedule like this
Re: One City Saved $5M by Routing School Buses with an Algorithm
#50$2000 per student per year is insane for a bus service. That's like $10 a day. You could probably UberPool every kid at that price since you'd have a high utilization rate for two narrow 30 min to 1 hour windows each day.
$200 would be more appropriate.