Tech disrupts the school bus — A Silicon Valley start-up promised to modernize school transportation. Instead, it stranded thousands of students (slate.com)
from L4s@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 02 Oct 2023 04:00
https://lemmy.world/post/6144768

Tech disrupts the school bus — A Silicon Valley start-up promised to modernize school transportation. Instead, it stranded thousands of students::When disruption is just disruptive.

#technology

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Mojojojo1993@lemmy.world on 02 Oct 2023 04:37 next collapse

Good. The amount of disruption the school run causes. Basically makes driving at 3ish a nightmare. Should be electric buses shuttling children.

Anyone who turns up in an SUV should be immediately expelled from the school

DampSquid@feddit.uk on 02 Oct 2023 05:13 collapse

Did you finish reading the title? Stranded children is good?

skymtf@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 02 Oct 2023 05:36 collapse

It was routing software, the bus its self was a normal bus.

DampSquid@feddit.uk on 02 Oct 2023 05:48 collapse

Haha, that’ll teach me to be sassy

Amaltheamannen@lemmy.ml on 02 Oct 2023 05:20 next collapse

I wish I know what happened but I’m not listening to a whole podcast. What happened to posting articles.

Mr_Blott@lemmy.world on 02 Oct 2023 06:00 collapse

Yeah Lemmy has a massive problem with fuckers posting YouTube vids instead of articles too.

Not just that, but fuckin infantile thumbnails too 🤢

Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works on 02 Oct 2023 17:54 collapse

It’s not just Lemmy. It’s getting harder to find good text based articles to begin with. Nowadays your lucky to get a couple paragraphs before an embedded video that might be just an add, or the story…

Maven@lemmy.sdf.org on 02 Oct 2023 06:05 next collapse

TL;DR a company called Zuma is trying to replace school busses with a fleet of smaller vans for 5-10 kids at a time to increase efficiency. “Like Uber for kids”. The routing software did not handle the addition of a new city well.

brygphilomena@lemmy.world on 02 Oct 2023 14:51 next collapse

I was curious about the “technology” they used since the article didn’t talk about it and I didn’t want to listen to a podcast.

Having more drivers and smaller vehicles can get past a lot of the commercial drivers license requirements. Passenger endorsements are for 16 people or more.

It’s so strange though. People are forgetting why we have busses in the first place. Economies of scale, more efficient, fewer emissions, less traffic, etc.

nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de on 03 Oct 2023 00:08 next collapse

Also big yellow school buses have an amazingly good safety record.

deweydecibel@lemmy.world on 03 Oct 2023 00:11 collapse

Safer, too. You generally don’t want smaller buses that anyone can drive without a CDL. You want the big, honkin yellow bois, that are some of the safest vehicles on the road, party because of their size and weight.

Also, and this was a problem in the roll out: more drivers means more need for substitutes to fill in when they call off. They had drivers just not show up for various reasons, and the kids were stuck.

People are forgetting why we have busses in the first place.

No one is forgetting. This is another idiotic startup with a solution in search of a problem. And one district got suckered into it. Most districts wouldn’t dream of adopting something as idiotic as this, and if they did, parents would revolt.

deweydecibel@lemmy.world on 03 Oct 2023 00:03 collapse

So…more drivers, and less safe vehicles. Flawless plan.

Xianshi@lemm.ee on 02 Oct 2023 06:43 next collapse

Of course it did 🙄.

charles@lemmy.world on 02 Oct 2023 13:46 next collapse

The Baltimore Banner has some great investigative articles on this

AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space on 02 Oct 2023 17:24 collapse

Did Silicon Valley try to reinvent the bus again?