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I am glad that people are using algorithms to increase efficiency. But, this seems to only save $5M out of a $120M budget - I was expecting and am hoping for mo

by vineet 9y ago

I am glad that people are using algorithms to increase efficiency. But, this seems to only save $5M out of a $120M budget - I was expecting and am hoping for more. I feel like it would be an awesome project to dissect a large public institutions funding and to discuss ways that algorithms can help reduce costs without reducing the quality of service and agility of the organization. The site would not allow me to read the full article, so I might have missed something.

dublinben 9y ago
If you prepend "facebook.com/l.php?u=" to a wsj link, it will let you read the full article. Like so: http://facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-do-you-fix-a-school-bus-problem-call-mit-1502456400 http://facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.wsj.com/articles/how...
- LeifCarrotson 9y ago
  WSJ: You cannot have your SEO marketing and social media virality cake and eat it, too.
- distantsounds 9y ago
  ooh, this used to work when searching the article in Google but has since stopped. Glad this workaround exists!
toomuchtodo 9y ago
> I am glad that people are using algorithms to increase efficiency. But, this seems to only save $5M out of a $120M budget - I was expecting and am hoping for more. There is only so much efficiency you can squeeze out with an algorithm. But, think scale. This is only in Boston. What if this team offered up the algorithm to all schools and other public transit authorities in the country? Think how many miles driven (less miles = less wear and tear, less opportunity for accidents to occur) and dollars would be saved. Want to do it as a for profit taking a cut of the savings? Cool. Want to do it as a non-profit funded by the DOE out of a grant? That'd work to. It appears there are hundreds of millions of dollars in savings to be realized out there from this, which is awesome.
hervature 9y ago
For those that think that a 4% decrease (or equivalently a 5% increase) is not much, you should go ask your boss for a 5% raise and see what they think.
- dajohnson89 9y ago
  I think the 1m mile savings figure implies a much higher cost that's harder to quantify -- vehicle wear, accident reduction, traffic congestion, labour, etc.
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  Isn't it more like tell your boss you'll take a pay cut, all it will cost is hiring your personal firm as efficiency consultants for £2M ... But look 5% reduction off your portion of the wage bill.
  - bb611 9y ago
    The contest prize was $15,000, there were probably some ancillary costs related to running the event but still quite cheap.

by vineet 9y ago

dublinben 9y ago

If you prepend "facebook.com/l.php?u=" to a wsj link, it will let you read the full article. Like so: http://facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-do-you-fix-a-school-bus-problem-call-mit-1502456400 http://facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.wsj.com/articles/how...

LeifCarrotson 9y ago
WSJ: You cannot have your SEO marketing and social media virality cake and eat it, too.
distantsounds 9y ago
ooh, this used to work when searching the article in Google but has since stopped. Glad this workaround exists!

toomuchtodo 9y ago

> I am glad that people are using algorithms to increase efficiency. But, this seems to only save $5M out of a $120M budget - I was expecting and am hoping for more. There is only so much efficiency you can squeeze out with an algorithm. But, think scale. This is only in Boston. What if this team offered up the algorithm to all schools and other public transit authorities in the country? Think how many miles driven (less miles = less wear and tear, less opportunity for accidents to occur) and dollars would be saved. Want to do it as a for profit taking a cut of the savings? Cool. Want to do it as a non-profit funded by the DOE out of a grant? That'd work to. It appears there are hundreds of millions of dollars in savings to be realized out there from this, which is awesome.

hervature 9y ago

For those that think that a 4% decrease (or equivalently a 5% increase) is not much, you should go ask your boss for a 5% raise and see what they think.

dajohnson89 9y ago
I think the 1m mile savings figure implies a much higher cost that's harder to quantify -- vehicle wear, accident reduction, traffic congestion, labour, etc.
pbhjpbhj 9y ago
Isn't it more like tell your boss you'll take a pay cut, all it will cost is hiring your personal firm as efficiency consultants for £2M ... But look 5% reduction off your portion of the wage bill.
- bb611 9y ago
  The contest prize was $15,000, there were probably some ancillary costs related to running the event but still quite cheap.