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US cities pay too much for buses

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Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#381

Post by fn-mote »

jacobgkau wrote: post #272
decimalenough wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't seen a non-AC bus in ages, even in developing countries.

My public school buses in a decent Midwestern suburb had no AC cooling as recently as a decade ago (only heat, since heat comes free with an engine). I wouldn't expect them to have AC cooling today. Buses you pay directly to ride may be a bit different, but I'd also expect AC isn't ubiquitous in those, or wasn't until very recently.

They are exactly the same busses. I've never heard of a school bus with AC in the US. (Please, someone from Arizona correct me.)

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#382

Post by sam345 »

RobKohr wrote: post #202

"Federal funding typically covers 80% of bus purchases, with agencies responsible for the remainder." Well, there is your answer. The one making the purchase isn't the one primarily paying for the purchase. This makes them less sensitive to pricing. Kinda like how expensive healthcare is since it is paid for by insurance. Or how you don't care how much you put on your plate or what you choose to eat at an all you can…

Exactly. Same for Universities. Thank you.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#383

Post by dzhiurgis »

theologic wrote: post #311
cogman10 wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cancer, in particular, can be practically free to insurance if caught early. Colon and skin cancer are the poster children. Colon cancer can be treated in the process of doing the screening when caught early. And skin cancer is a pretty minor "just lop off that mole" procedure that also ends up being the treatment. Letting it grow and catching it when symptoms arise is terribly expensive. The chemo, surgery, scans, a…

Another variation of this are GLP 1 drugs. Obesity costs USA $1.75T ( https://milkeninstitute.org/content-hub/news-releases/econom... , grossed up for inflation) Number of people that are obese: 100M Annual economic impact from obesity per person: $17,500 per year GLP-1 "For All": $6,000 per year (assuming multiple vendors, and some will be over vs under) Savings: $11,500 per year per person. Economic impact: Around…

Could US gov just buy out one the patents and make it free for all?

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#384

Post by estearum »

NooneAtAll3 wrote: post #319
estearum wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also the largest insurers increasingly own the doctors you’re seeing too. Also the pharmacy you get your drugs from. Also the entity that negotiates prices between pharma companies and your insurer. More healthcare consumption = better, across the board

> More healthcare consumption = better, across the board no more paid money for less healthcare consumed = better for insurence thus all the declined treatments

Not quite true. If you own the providers, getting people to pay deductibles and copays (i.e. getting treated) will yield way more money than just having them pay premiums.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#385

Post by estearum »

dnissley wrote: post #368
hibikir wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even when it's not the insurer, it's at least a hospital. Many a doctor around me that used to have a private practice sold to one of the hospital chains, as they promised more money than by owning, solely due to superior collective action advantages. A large insurer can bully a private practice into cutting costs, but a hospital network that handles 40% of ERs in the metro area? The insurance company can lose. So ev…

On top of that the ACA prevents new physician owned hospitals from being established and placed restrictions on expansions of existing ones

To be fair, this is because there's long-standing [but disputed] evidence that healthcare providers drive up costs/utilization when they can refer to hospitals they have equity stakes in.

Messy business!

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#386

Post by AngryData »

myrmidon wrote: post #16
mschuster91 wrote: post #3

A lot of fluff (although I do appreciate the hard numbers and reasons - thirteen shades of grey for flooring is utterly ridiculous) for essentially these two points: - low lot size combined with a lot of customization demands leads to high per-unit costs - "Buy American" is expensive. D'uh. Unfortunately the article doesn't dig down deeper into why BYD and other Chinese manufacturers are cheaper - 996 style slave lab…

I think labor cost alone is most plausible, especially combined with higher quantities. Average yearly salary in urban China is Getting parity with subsidies, worker/environmental protection and regulation overhead would not even come close to make the US price-competitive for labor intensive work like this right now, IMO.

I don't believe labor is that much of the cost of a bus, unless you are talking about the "labor" of investors and high level administrators. Ive worked in many many different manufacturing jobs, and labor of building things has always been the lowest cost of concern despite managers trying to harp on about it. Labor costs are the easiest to control, which is why they get the most attention, but material procurement, administrative bloat and bureaucracy, and marketing or bribes always top the scale above the workers actually producing what is being sold.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#387

Post by danpalmer »

SpicyUme wrote: post #175
ecshafer wrote: post #133

I 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…

But a bus isn't just a bus, there are differences in what is needed in different cities. Some need heat, some need AC, some need both. In Utah there are buses that go up the canyons and they have gearboxes focused on climbing steep hills, while a bus in the valley might never need that ratio and can be optimized for efficiency on the flats. Seattle has buses with electric trolley lines above, and buses that were desi…

> But a bus isn't just a bus, there are differences in what is needed in different cities

That's sometimes true but often not. Utah might need buses to go up the canyons, but might have passed some requirement at some point that said that all the buses need to be able to do this because someone got burnt once by not having enough of those buses. Or some well-meaning (or vote seeking?) city councillor might have put through a bill to put USB-A chargers in all the seats, which will stick around far longer than those coming as standard making them an expensive custom option.

What you end up with is requirements that make the buses custom purchases, which massively inflates their costs, when any reasonable person would say that such custom attributes aren't (always) needed. By having a strong opinion about something, the city will pay far more than if they bought an off-the-shelf solution.

Much of "the west" is particularly affected by this sort of attitude. Everywhere and everyone is convinced that they are special in some way and need something specific, but end up paying for it. This is part of why India can send a probe to Mars for $72m, or why Singapore can buy busses at $300k instead of $1m. And to be clear, I say this having grown up in the UK and moved to Australia, both places with a certain amount of this attitude.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#388

Post by namibj »

Spooky23 wrote: post #246
potato3732842 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are about as many concrete trucks as there are fire trucks in the US (and like fire trucks some of the fleet is purpose built and some of the fleet is specialty bodies on normal-ish trucks) and they don't have comparable problems with PE buying the manufacturing up. I think there's more to it than just evil PE

I’m on a city e&a board. A couple of PE groups have rolled up the remaining fire truck manufacturers. 3 companies own 75% of the market. This is a well known issue… Google away and there’s lots to read about. I know nothing about cement mixers. A rig that was $500k in 2010 is $2-2.5M now. That’s “cheap” —- volunteer fire companies tend to pimp up the trucks (usually they are paid via grant), cities are cheap on capit…

I assume buying from the European supply is federally banned due to truck import rules? Or would the insurance companies not recognize their capabilities?

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#389

Post by dzhiurgis »

bluGill wrote: post #63

Don'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…

Crazy diesel busses are still legal to begin with. Thats basically some form of money laundering at this point.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#390

Post by dzhiurgis »

esafak wrote: post #93
bluGill wrote: post #63

Don'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…

I'm hearing you say we should have self-driving buses... which is feasible since their route is fixed.

Or buy 10 Teslas for the same price and offer superior service.
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