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US cities pay too much for buses

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Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#411

Post by bluGill »

notatoad wrote: post #121
bluGill wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do. What is different is the options. The bus itself is the same, but you can put options on the bus that drive up the price.

"standardizing" doesn't just mean ending up with the same stuff. it means making an up-front committment to a supplier that you will buy the same stuff, and getting a better deal in exchange for that committment. if you end up buying a whole bunch of units of the same stuff without planning to, you're wasting all that potential efficiency.

Standard means you buy stuff that is similar to everyone else in ways that matter. paint is easy to do custom - and since everyone wants it they put in paint booths for any scheme. you want them to invest in jigs which costs money but pays off in volume - so work with the engineers to figure out what matters.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#412

Post by cortesoft »

vkou wrote: post #307
axiolite wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that pushing buses onto surface streets makes it worse for cars. It's that it makes it worse for buses, which then leads people to take cars instead, which makes things even worse.

1. Priority bus lanes are solving that problem. 2. If getting through downtown by bus is slow, getting through it by car isn't any faster. Anyways, Seattle's transit problem isn't bad downtown bus service, it's godawful spoke-and-last-mile coverage, which eviscerates ridership, makes the overall network less efficient, and forms a negative-feedback-loop that blocks transit improvements. Nobody likes sitting around fo…

> If getting through downtown by bus is slow, getting through it by car isn't any faster

This isn’t true at all.

Busses stop continuously along the route, which adds a ton of time. Cars go straight to the destination.

You also have to add the time spent waiting for the bus, and the time to walk to the bus stop.

Busses usually aren’t going to take as direct a route as a car can. You will likely have to walk once you get to your destination, too, or switch buses.

I am all for public transportation, and take it all the time, but let’s not pretend it is always faster than cars.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#413

Post by aidenn0 »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #390
esafak wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's 10x the cost of drivers though.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#414

Post by msandford »

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

The insurers are legally obligated to pay out 80-95% of their premiums for treatment. So the only way to grow profits is to spend 2x and much and charge 2x as much. Sure you only make the same 5-20% margin, but it's on 2x the revenue so it's 2x the gross profits.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#415

Post by 4MOAisgoodenuf »

danpalmer wrote: post #387
SpicyUme wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Do you have a specific citeable example of unnecessary “custom requirements” driving up the cost of city buses in the US

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#416

Post by 4MOAisgoodenuf »

decimalenough wrote: post #250
lazyasciiart wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they certainly don’t all come with AC and heat.

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

Busses without AC drive kids to school everyday out here in the American Midwest.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#417

Post by 4MOAisgoodenuf »

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…

> This is kind of absurd, I have been on busses all over the country, a metro bus, is a metro bus. There are not really differences based on topography or climate.

That’s because your job was passenger.

From the drivers perspective: configuration should absolutely match the terrain and the expected route. For example: an Allison AT545 transmission without a lockup torque converter will be hell in the mountain and hill climbs of Colorado, possibly even dangerous. Whereas it may serve perfectly fine in Nebraska.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#418

Post by bruce511 »

moduspol wrote: post #408
qgin wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a $6500 deductible. I definitely care what things cost because my insurance almost never actually helps pay for anything unless I have an unbelievably bad year. The problem is that literally nobody can tell me how much anything is going to cost until I get the bill in a month. Not even because they don't want to tell me. Nobody at the desk even knows what my price is going to be because it's all numberwang.

Not defending insurance but theoretically you do also get a better rate than the uninsured rate just by having it go through the health insurance. I say “theoretically” because I’ve also heard they’re often willing to cut some pretty good deals if you don’t have insurance and pay cash. And I mean “good” relative to the initially billed amount, not “good” relative to what it should actually cost.

Yeah, I suspect this is very country and region specific.

In my country I don't have health insurance. I've noticed that medical providers charge me less on discovering that. Party (I suspect) because I'll pay immediately so there's no financial cost (ie cost of delayed cash flow) and much lower admin cost (ie they don't need to deal with insurers.)

In some places I've seen signs advertising 30% discount if you "pay now, claim back from your insurance yourself". This informs my hypothesis that providers see the insurance system as a major overhead.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#419

Post by kmeisthax »

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…

[dead]

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#420

Post by jmyeet »

moduspol wrote: post #408
qgin wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a $6500 deductible. I definitely care what things cost because my insurance almost never actually helps pay for anything unless I have an unbelievably bad year. The problem is that literally nobody can tell me how much anything is going to cost until I get the bill in a month. Not even because they don't want to tell me. Nobody at the desk even knows what my price is going to be because it's all numberwang.

Not defending insurance but theoretically you do also get a better rate than the uninsured rate just by having it go through the health insurance. I say “theoretically” because I’ve also heard they’re often willing to cut some pretty good deals if you don’t have insurance and pay cash. And I mean “good” relative to the initially billed amount, not “good” relative to what it should actually cost.

No, it’s the opposite actually. There are a couple of reasons why:

1. You have a deductible. Insurance is incentivized to make things more expensive so you don’t use it. With a $10,000 deductible, are you going to pay $500 for a service outside insurance or $2,000 with insurance?

2. Hospitals really have no idea what anything costs. Nobody does. There is a maze if agreements between providers, contractors, hospitals and insurance companies. If you have insurance, hospitals are more likely to throw out a higher random number;

3. There is more process and paperwork for the hospital with insurance; and

4. You are more likely to be able to negotiate down a bill without insurance.

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