MIT team’s school-bus algorithm could save $5M and 1M bus miles
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Re: MIT team’s school-bus algorithm could save $5M and 1M bus miles
#2I am glad that people are using algorithms to increase efficiency. But, this seems to only save $5M out of a $120M budget - I was expecting and am hoping for more.
I feel like it would be an awesome project to dissect a large public institutions funding and to discuss ways that algorithms can help reduce costs without reducing the quality of service and agility of the organization.
The site would not allow me to read the full article, so I might have missed something.
Re: MIT team’s school-bus algorithm could save $5M and 1M bus miles
#3I am glad that people are using algorithms to increase efficiency. But, this seems to only save $5M out of a $120M budget - I was expecting and am hoping for more. I feel like it would be an awesome project to dissect a large public institutions funding and to discuss ways that algorithms can help reduce costs without reducing the quality of service and agility of the organization. The site would not allow me to read…
If you prepend "facebook.com/l.php?u=" to a wsj link, it will let you read the full article. Like so:
http://facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.wsj.com/articles/how...
Re: MIT team’s school-bus algorithm could save $5M and 1M bus miles
#4I am glad that people are using algorithms to increase efficiency. But, this seems to only save $5M out of a $120M budget - I was expecting and am hoping for more. I feel like it would be an awesome project to dissect a large public institutions funding and to discuss ways that algorithms can help reduce costs without reducing the quality of service and agility of the organization. The site would not allow me to read…
> I am glad that people are using algorithms to increase efficiency. But, this seems to only save $5M out of a $120M budget - I was expecting and am hoping for more.
There is only so much efficiency you can squeeze out with an algorithm. But, think scale. This is only in Boston. What if this team offered up the algorithm to all schools and other public transit authorities in the country? Think how many miles driven (less miles = less wear and tear, less opportunity for accidents to occur) and dollars would be saved.
Want to do it as a for profit taking a cut of the savings? Cool. Want to do it as a non-profit funded by the DOE out of a grant? That'd work to. It appears there are hundreds of millions of dollars in savings to be realized out there from this, which is awesome.
Re: MIT team’s school-bus algorithm could save $5M and 1M bus miles
#5I am glad that people are using algorithms to increase efficiency. But, this seems to only save $5M out of a $120M budget - I was expecting and am hoping for more. I feel like it would be an awesome project to dissect a large public institutions funding and to discuss ways that algorithms can help reduce costs without reducing the quality of service and agility of the organization. The site would not allow me to read…
If you prepend "facebook.com/l.php?u=" to a wsj link, it will let you read the full article. Like so: http://facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.wsj.com/articles/how...
WSJ: You cannot have your SEO marketing and social media virality cake and eat it, too.
Re: MIT team’s school-bus algorithm could save $5M and 1M bus miles
#6I am glad that people are using algorithms to increase efficiency. But, this seems to only save $5M out of a $120M budget - I was expecting and am hoping for more. I feel like it would be an awesome project to dissect a large public institutions funding and to discuss ways that algorithms can help reduce costs without reducing the quality of service and agility of the organization. The site would not allow me to read…
For those that think that a 4% decrease (or equivalently a 5% increase) is not much, you should go ask your boss for a 5% raise and see what they think.
Re: MIT team’s school-bus algorithm could save $5M and 1M bus miles
#7Pickup 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 practice for decades.
Re: MIT team’s school-bus algorithm could save $5M and 1M bus miles
#8Kind 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.
Re: MIT team’s school-bus algorithm could save $5M and 1M bus miles
#9I am glad that people are using algorithms to increase efficiency. But, this seems to only save $5M out of a $120M budget - I was expecting and am hoping for more. I feel like it would be an awesome project to dissect a large public institutions funding and to discuss ways that algorithms can help reduce costs without reducing the quality of service and agility of the organization. The site would not allow me to read…
For those that think that a 4% decrease (or equivalently a 5% increase) is not much, you should go ask your boss for a 5% raise and see what they think.
I think the 1m mile savings figure implies a much higher cost that's harder to quantify -- vehicle wear, accident reduction, traffic congestion, labour, etc.
Re: MIT team’s school-bus algorithm could save $5M and 1M bus miles
#10Since 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 expect if you are used to dealing with businesses.
It makes sense but when I encountered this the first time it caught me by surprise. I mean who wouldn't want to save money, right?