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US cities pay too much for buses

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Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#491

Post by crote »

Symbiote wrote: post #450
decimalenough wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Buses in places like Ireland, Scotland, much of Scandinavia, etc will never need air conditioning. Places a little warmer (England, Denmark, Netherlands, northern Germany) might be warm enough for a few days per year, but the cost of purchase and maintenance of A/C might not be worthwhile.

How many of those places have you been to? They might not need year-round A/C like some other countries, but the increasingly-common heat waves definitely require them. The buses are almost intolerable with air conditioning, there's no way in hell they'd ever purchase them without it.

The additional purchase cost is a rounding error, and you're far worse off if cooking people alive during the summer means losing customers year-round as they switch to less-hostile transit options. Maintenance isn't a dealbreaker either: sure, it's extra work, but the equipment is rarely needed. This means the occasional breakage isn't a huge deal, and big maintenance can be deferred to the spring and fall.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#492

Post by saalweachter »

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…

> It could be cheaper in the long run to have more tax collection and expenditure at the local level, and not rely as much on federal grants.

There's a bit of a prisoner's dilemma here in that even if a city decides to go this route, their citizens are still paying Federal taxes and contributing to the programs used to buy busses.

So you're not going to save your citizens any money unless everyone stops using the programs. From an incremental standpoint, where everyone has already defected, you want your local governments to be grabbing every grant they can.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#493

Post by zbentley »

balozi wrote: post #252
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…

Federal subsidies don't stop at paying for much of the bus purchase costs, they are also paying for much of the roads and bridges the busses run on. Subsides cover of the operating costs, especially labor and energy. And at the very end, the reason most localities are able to offer free rides or very low cost rides is because federal dollars are subsidizing the final ride fares.

Yes, and?

The outcome of that approach is that an important service has uniform low costs to direct consumers, many of whom rely on the service for their quality of life, and many of whom would be unable to afford the service if its costs were passed along to them instead of subsidized via government debt and taxes.

In other words, a public service. That’s a good thing.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#494

Post by crote »

numpad0 wrote: post #248
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…

> Singapore has a very efficient, highly trained, highly educated, highly paid administrative staff, Or it's just literal economy of scale. 10 buses, 17 buses, vs 240, that difference changes economics completely. You will be buying 500 of headlights, little under 1k tyres and wheels, couple thousands of seats, etc. Those are all whole lot numbers. That will save tons of overheads.

Yes, but that's exactly the point the article is making: stop doing expensive one-off purchases! Rather than having 20 cities each buy their own set of 10 custom buses, have them place a shared order of 200 identical buses.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#495

Post by zbentley »

cyberax wrote: post #333
jodrellblank wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could have trams and trains with level boarding which helps people who don't have disabilities too, costs less, takes less space in the city, makes less noise, needs less maintenance, and moves more people.

Except that they don't cost less. And are more inconvenient, especially if you can't move a lot. And they're slower, and will require you to make a transfer. And don't run at night. But otherwise,yeah. Sure.

Slower? In top speed maybe, but not in time-to-destination (or, given congested streets, average speed).

Trains “require” you to make a transfer? Depends on your city, I guess; many train systems are hub-and-spoke-like enough (and dense enough) that common commutes don’t require any transfers. Also, I’m curious whether bus-centric mass transit requires more or fewer transfers than train-centric or hybrid.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#496

Post by crazygringo »

conductr wrote: post #432
crazygringo wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? Why not have identifying paint? I can't even imagine what would give you this idea. Like, they've got to be some color or set of colors. Do you think police officers should just wear street clothes rather than us paying for their uniforms? Should taxis that you hail from the street be indistinguishable from regular cars because you think the little illuminated sign on top is enough? We color things and make them…

I didn’t ask for your help other than accepting other opinions exist. In some cases the distinction is of high value. In some cases it’s at low cost. I’m of opinion this is low value and high cost, thus the cost benefit analysis fails. You’re free to disagree. Cop uniforms are low cost and serve a significantly higher purpose. Taxis being a distinct color is unnecessary too. If I can identify a Dominos delivery vehic…

> I didn’t ask for your help other than accepting other opinions exist.

Perhaps you don't understand how HN works. When you give an opinion, other people can disagree.

If you don't like what they say, don't complain that you "didn't ask for their help". If that's your attitude, perhaps internet forums are not the place for you.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#497

Post by [deleted] »

cowsandmilk wrote: post #474
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…

You’re assuming the federal government rubber stamps their 80%

[deleted]

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#498

Post by crote »

bombcar wrote: post #210
Symbiote wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think existing electric locomotives are more powerful than existing diesel locomotives. The "most powerful diesel–electric locomotive model ever built on a single frame", the EMD DDA40X, provides 5MW. The EURO9000, "currently the most powerful locomotive on the European market" provides 9MW under electric power. USA-made locomotives are so far down the list on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_powerful_loc…

That electric locomotive has a really long cord attached to it - it only has about 2MW under diesel. Once you allow attaching an extension cord, electric wins ever time; there's zero competition.

Trains run on rails, which doesn't exactly allow them to go off-highway. If you're already spending a fortune on building the rail infrastructure, why wouldn't you spend a few bucks extra to install the extension cord?

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#499

Post by Workaccount2 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #443
breatheoften wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes more than just misaligned incentives to get a banking crisis -- you have to have structural corruption preventing the transfer of the loss gradient back to the "misaligned" decision makers. It's somewhat disingenuous (or overly innocent) to reimagine the pathways which power structural corruption as "innocent ignorance in the face of bad incentives". The real world has "actually bad" actors -- not just misal…

> It takes more than just misaligned incentives to get a banking crisis -- you have to have structural corruption preventing the transfer of the loss gradient back to the "misaligned" decision makers. Nah, you can do it just on the basis of information asymmetries. Banks can sell mortgages. People think buying mortgages is safe, because banks don't loan money to people they don't think can pay it back, and even if th…

Let me tell you something about people...

You can sit them down and explain precisely why buying something, like a new car, is a bad financial decision and that they cannot afford it anyway, and then watch them go buy it anyway. To the point where I have seen people laugh about how dumb of an idea it is, while in the act of doing it.

The "I wish someone explained to me..." that comes later when it all falls apart is largely just licking the wounds of their damaged ego.

Re: US cities pay too much for buses

#500

Post by zbentley »

rootusrootus wrote: post #159
dayvid wrote: post #88

Worth watching Modern MBA on the inefficiencies of transit in USA. Detailed analysis and comparison against Asian, European and Latin American systems along with private and government run operations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQ3LSNXwZ2Y

Repeating the oft-cited but questionable assertion that car companies dismantled city rail systems makes me uncertain about how trustworthy the rest of their claims are. Though they did mention that the US is the most wealthy nation in the world -- did they later offer an opinion whether that would still be true had we approached public transit and health care subsidies the same way European countries did?

> whether that would still be true had we approached public transit and health care subsidies the same way European countries did?

Why wouldn’t it? I’ve heard many different explanations for the US’s wealth, but never that it’s wealthy because it saves on expenditures. There is also a solid case to be made that healthcare specifically would, if socialized, drive up productivity, earning power, and reduce fiscal risk (and risk aversion) for many demographics, all of which are good for GDP and other measures of a country’s wealth.

As for mass transit? It has costs and benefits too, but they’re a drop in the bucket compared to healthcare costs.

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