Similar data on police vehicles could be interesting.
US cities pay too much for buses
141–150 of 590 posts
Re: US cities pay too much for buses
#142I think that the authors solution, outsourcing production is not quite right, they gloss over other issues. >In a large country like the US, some variation in bus design is inevitable due to differences in conditions like weather and topography. But Silverberg said that many customizations are cosmetic, reflecting agency preferences or color schemes but not affecting vehicle performance. This is kind of absurd, I hav…
We also don't know much about these so called purchasing contracts either.
For example. do they contain sustainment services, maintenance equipment, storage facilities, or other sourcing requirements?
When using federal funds, you're generally required to purchase all American products, I remember trying to furnish an office with just two desks and four chairs (nothing fancy), and the initial cost estimates were over six thousand dollars. When we acquired private funding, we were able to get everything under two thousand, you can see the same pricing with Zoom hardware as a service leasing prices as well, they're leasing some equipment almost at twice the cost due (as far as I know) to all American sourcing.
I'm not questioning the sourcing restrictions, but trying to point out that it's a little more than the education level of the staff only.
Re: US cities pay too much for buses
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
The side effects of “Buy American” rules do not include a dynamic, competitive domestic bus manufacturing industry. Just the opposite. If the Chinese want to subsidize our mass transit buildout, why not let them? Are busses really critical national security concerns? If we needed the existing NA producers to build military busses it sounds like we’d be screwed!
A literal bus factory may not be critical for national security, but the ability to manufacture a vehicle is. So the know-how, the supply lines, and the manufacturing facility are important. The ability to manufacture a fuel injector, a transmission, a windshield is going going to apply to a bus, a plane, a tank..
If only there was an entire American city filled with people and companies who had this expertise. We could call it the "Motor City".
Re: US cities pay too much for buses
#144Similar data on police vehicles could be interesting.
Firefighting vehicles too, more expensive than European counterparts by a factor of 10.
Re: US cities pay too much for buses
#145Don't be fooled, paying less won't help much since the cost of a bus is a small part of the costs of running a bus route. about half your costs are the bus driver. The most expensive bus is still only 1/3rd of your hourly cost of running the bus. If a more expensive bus is more reliable that could more than make up for a more expensive bus (I don't have any numbers to do math on though). Half the costs of running a b…
> about half your costs are the bus driver
(Genuine question) is this true around the globe, or is that US-specific?
We were in Portugal over the summer and travelled with Flixbus (for the first time ever) to get from Porto to Lisbon. Were impressed by the high-quality service and great value for money. Wonder how much the driver makes per hour?
Re: US cities pay too much for buses
#146Our buses are also less comfortable and "rattle" more that busses I've ridden in many other first world countries. I'm not sure if this is an economics thing but the standard New Flyer buses feel a bit dated.
What's causing the rattle? In the UK, there were always a few buses in any given fleet that rattled more than others, especially when idling or at low revs - something to do with resonance with the body panels, I think. But that was back when diesel engines were universal, so hasn't really been a thing since hybrids and (more recently) BEVs took over. Looks like New Flyer hybrids use BAE Systems' Hybridrive, which wa…
I once complained to Transport for London when a bus I was using regularly was rattling so much it made me feel ill.
They said the driver can change gear (put it in neutral?) which reduces the rattle, and they are supposed to do this, but some drivers don't bother.
Re: US cities pay too much for buses
#147Similar data on police vehicles could be interesting.
Started googling and found this:
https://www.newsweek.com/americas-new-police-cars-are-taxpay...
>...features specifically designed for policing come standard including Police Perimeter Alert, a technology that detects moving treats around a vehicle and automatically activates the rear camera, sounds a chime...
Anyway...
Re: US cities pay too much for buses
#148Ultimately due to a lack of transit competition. Municipal transit will be bloated and inefficient on every level because no amount of failure will put them out of business. Indeed, most agencies' main goal is to increase budget (any increase in service or customer satisfaction is incidental) because more budget equals bigger projects and more staff which is more prestigious and higher paying.
I'm with you at heart, but experience says government owned transit works just fine and even great in other countries. What's their secret sauce?
Other countries provide transit as a transportation service for all. US politicians and voters view it as a charity for the temporarily carless.
All the other issues are downstream of this mindset.
Re: US cities pay too much for buses
#149So the authors basic argument is to offshore bus production. As if that doesn’t carry any negative side effects. This is exactly what the majority of Americans voted against and exactly why the left can’t find its footing. Everyone is now fully aware that offshoring for a cheap sticker price comes with higher, harder to price costs elsewhere.
The side effects of “Buy American” rules do not include a dynamic, competitive domestic bus manufacturing industry. Just the opposite. If the Chinese want to subsidize our mass transit buildout, why not let them? Are busses really critical national security concerns? If we needed the existing NA producers to build military busses it sounds like we’d be screwed!
> If we needed the existing NA producers to build military busses it sounds like we’d be screwed!
I only really skimmed the article, and didn't even load the underlying paper. But it seems like a big issue was custom orders. If we need wartime vehicle production, like in WWII, there would most likely be a single or small number of designs that a facility would produce. I would expect a lot more coordination between ordering, production, and supply chain as well --- if we need mass production, tradeoffs change.
> If the Chinese want to subsidize our mass transit buildout, why not let them? Are busses really critical national security concerns?
Busses are likely not really the national security concern, the concern would be having large vehicle manufacturing. It may be easier to retool a bus factory line to build large military vehicles than a compact car factory.
I'd imagine this is something like the Jones Act, where if it works, we keep the doors open for rapid changeover to military production. That's not really working for ships... the market has chosen alternate transportation rather than building large vessels for domestic transport, and so we don't really have large shipyards that could be pressed into building military vessels if needed --- the shipyards that can are the ones that build them in peace time and they don't have much excess capacity.
Re: US cities pay too much for buses
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is wrong with diesel bus manufacturing? Just the exhaust pedestrians have to breath in? It seems near the bottom of the list for things we'd need to solve for carbon emissions.
Yes, the exhaust that people have to breathe. I realize they have improved but aren’t natural gas buses better?
Yes, walking close to the exhaust of a CNG bus is like walking a bit too close to a gas grill/barbecue — hot and a rather chemical, but not noxious and choking like a diesel bus.