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Not sure why transit agencies are still paying for custom paint schemes or colors when they just turn around and wrap the whole bus with advertising. Just buy a

Not sure why transit agencies are still paying for custom paint schemes or colors when they just turn around and wrap the whole bus with advertising. Just buy a plain white bus. The article didn't mention corruption but I would not rule it out. Follow the money. Whose pockets are being filled when one transit agency is paying 2x what another one does for the same bus.

altcognito 1y ago
Since they are often adorned with ads, I'm not sure why they pay for anything at all.
michaelt 1y ago
> Whose pockets are being filled when one transit agency is paying 2x what another one does for the same bus. I mean, that could just be normal, routine failure to negotiate effectively. If every bus vendor says "call for pricing" and your organisation has "always" paid $940k per bus, when you're told to buy some more buses, you might not even know you can get them for half or a third of that price by getting competing quotes from other vendors. And if you're an ambitious, hard-nosed type that can really turn the screws on vendors, leaving no stone unturned in your search for savings - would you be working in the purchasing department of a municipal bus company?
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  OK I agree... add "incompetence" along with "corruption" as a potential reason. Though corruption is easier to get away with if it appears as incompetence.
  - conductr 1y ago
    It’s a matter of procurement process and personnel. They simply aren’t always concerned with cost as the primary decision point and thus tend to not negotiate as hard as you might like. I’m in a finance role, company’s money is my responsibility so I very frequently have to tell procurement people that think a product “ticks all the boxes of the RFP” or similar, that the runner up product only missed on items we can live without so paying 2x isn’t worth it. I does come off as lacking critical thinking, but I’ve come to learn they just go off the requirement and don’t really know which things are critical versus nice to have. Those kinds of things, so I’d blame this entirely on whoever is supposed to have financial oversight over the bureaucracy. Do they have CFOs or similar, idk honestly, but that’s a reason most for profit companies do. They are monitoring large financial decisions for reasonableness.
- garciasn 1y ago
  I have a degree in Public Administration. This is basically an MBA for the public sector; but, the difference between the two largely lies in an MBA looking for opportunities to maximize the business and its shareholders vs an MPA looking to implement policies that best serve the public good. Government employees are NOT well-equipped to compete with private sector ones; they don't think like them and they don't act like them. Why? Because the public sector is driven by a completely different model: bottoms-up management, led by the citizenry, not led top-down to maximize shareholder value. In addition, because private sector jobs pay 2x+ what the same level in a public sector organization will pay and thus the candidate pool is simply not at the level that you would expect at a similarly sized private sector organization. Because of this flip-flopped model of operation (bottoms-up vs top-down) Public/Private partnerships are NOT equal arrangements and the private sector companies know exactly how to leverage these differences in their favor. In this instance, a public sector employee may feel that paying more for a bus will better serve the public good because it /may/ be better engineered, have a longer lifetime, and offer value to the public that's above and beyond what a less expensive model will do. But! Even if the support staff look for multiple quotes from a variety of vendors, all of which may be at the cost level a private sector company may prefer, that public sector staff member may very well be directly overruled by the elected officials; who, for reasons that can only be hypothesized (take your pick: corruption, brand/personal preference, whatever) may prefer the more expensive vendors that were not included in the research and bidding process. While I have laid out that the public sector is not well-equipped for public/private partnerships and business dealings, there are MANY reasons for this including: candidate pool, different underlying model of operation, and elected official decisioning.
- xnx 1y ago
  > And if you're an ambitious, hard-nosed type that can really turn the screws on vendors, Absolutely not. Cost savings is career suicide in the public sector. The goal is to spend all budget and then beg for more. Regardless of ridership, the ironclad rule is "budget must go up".
  - Volundr 1y ago
    It funny because having worked both in private industry and public (transit!) service, my experience is the exact opposite. In private anytime my department were coming in under budget on anything, there was always the end of the year pressure to spend it on something lest accounting take it away. Meanwhile in the public sector my team went to great lengths to get rid of vendor services that weren't providing value.
    - xnx 1y ago
      Good example. That budget behavior is common. Fortunately, if that has true negative effects, the market corrects by putting one company out of business.
      - Volundr 1y ago
        Let me know when the market gets around to that. At this time it's ignored all the ones I've worked for.
        mh- 1y ago
        Is it "ignoring" it, or is it priced in to the company's valuation?
        Volundr 1y ago
        I mean could be, maybe their stock would be a touch higher, but it doesn't stop them from being some of the biggest players in their markets. A far cry from being "put out of business" as the commenter I replied to promised.
gjsman-1000 1y ago
That already exists in MetroTransit in Minnesota. The only company that was seriously interested for several years was Planned Parenthood. https://www.startribune.com/the-drive-birth-control-bus-ad-stops-some-people-short/483158471 https://www.startribune.com/the-drive-birth-control-bus-ad-s... This did not improve public sympathies for bus service broadly speaking.
- PaulHoule 1y ago
  It's a pet peeve of mine that buses in my city have wrap-around ads for a car dealer an hour's drive away. (Turns out all the car dealers in this area are owned by the same people) Then there was that bus which had a supergraphic that made the whole bus look like an MRI machine advertising the medical center.
  - gjsman-1000 1y ago
    Personally, I'm not opposed to bus service; quite the opposite. Especially if I could bring an eBike. However, buses can and should feel safe for everyone, whether you're 5 years old or 95 years old, a US citizen or a visitor from Japan, whether it's 2 PM or 2 AM. In the United States, they absolutely don't. This can be fixed, but nobody has the political will to be perceived as a little mean.
    - PaulHoule 1y ago
      In my town all the buses have a bus rack in the front that fits up to two bikes or e-bikes. I perceive buses in my town be very safe. I definitely see emotionally disturbed people downtown and near the homeless colony behind Wal-Mart, but I don't see them on the bus.
      - gjsman-1000 1y ago
        In Minnesota, we built light rail... with an honor system for boarding. It got so bad, especially on the middle cars (the "party cars") after COVID, that the middle car was retired and they are now in Year 3 of a security improvement plan. https://www.metrotransit.org/public-safety https://www.metrotransit.org/public-safety They are also retro-fitting screens into the buses, showing the buses' own live camera feeds, to further reinforce the perception of being watched. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SBd3wno61k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SBd3wno61k It's still not working in some areas. https://www.startribune.com/minneapolis-46th-st-light-rail-crime/601374022 https://www.startribune.com/minneapolis-46th-st-light-rail-c... https://www.instagram.com/karenthecamera/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/karenthecamera/?hl=en
crazygringo 1y ago
> still paying for custom paint schemes or colors Because you need to be able to recognize from a distance, hey that's a city bus. Not a charter bus. Not a school bus. Not a long distance bus. And buses aren't usually wrapped with advertising. It's usually just a banner on the sides below the windows. Some ad campaigns pay much more money to extend it over the windows with that mesh material. But that's generally a small minority. But even then the colors on front and top and often borders still clearly identify it. E.g. these are still very clearly public transit if you live there, which is what's important: https://contravisionoutlook.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/singapore-bus.jpg https://contravisionoutlook.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads... https://contravisionoutlook.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/50-shades.jpg https://contravisionoutlook.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads...
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  School buses are a distinctive bright yellow, there's no mistaking them for anything else. Charter and long distance buses don't stop at the city bus stops. City buses will still have a sign/screen displaying the route number/name.
  - Jcowell 1y ago
    There’s a difference between spotting a bus at the stop and distance away and the actions you will take accordingly. You want the bus to be identifiable as possible.
  - crazygringo 1y ago
    Yeah but the point is you want to look down the street and see if there's a city bus a few blocks away or not. If so, hurry up and walk the block to the bus stop. If not, quickly grab a coffee or decide to grab a Citibike or whatever else that depends on that information. Spotting buses a few blocks away is a crucial skill in cities.
    - tallanvor 1y ago
      It really isn't when many cities have apps that give you real-time information as to when to expect the next bus.
bluGill 1y ago
I hate those advertising wraps. Most of them cover the windows that I as a rider want to look out of (you can see out, but they are not clear). If I don't want to look out give me a window shade, but when I want to look out I want to be able to see.
- stronglikedan 1y ago
  get your own bus and you can do what you want with it! /s
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]

altcognito 1y ago

Since they are often adorned with ads, I'm not sure why they pay for anything at all.

michaelt 1y ago

> Whose pockets are being filled when one transit agency is paying 2x what another one does for the same bus. I mean, that could just be normal, routine failure to negotiate effectively. If every bus vendor says "call for pricing" and your organisation has "always" paid $940k per bus, when you're told to buy some more buses, you might not even know you can get them for half or a third of that price by getting competing quotes from other vendors. And if you're an ambitious, hard-nosed type that can really turn the screws on vendors, leaving no stone unturned in your search for savings - would you be working in the purchasing department of a municipal bus company?

SoftTalker 1y ago
OK I agree... add "incompetence" along with "corruption" as a potential reason. Though corruption is easier to get away with if it appears as incompetence.
- conductr 1y ago
  It’s a matter of procurement process and personnel. They simply aren’t always concerned with cost as the primary decision point and thus tend to not negotiate as hard as you might like. I’m in a finance role, company’s money is my responsibility so I very frequently have to tell procurement people that think a product “ticks all the boxes of the RFP” or similar, that the runner up product only missed on items we can live without so paying 2x isn’t worth it. I does come off as lacking critical thinking, but I’ve come to learn they just go off the requirement and don’t really know which things are critical versus nice to have. Those kinds of things, so I’d blame this entirely on whoever is supposed to have financial oversight over the bureaucracy. Do they have CFOs or similar, idk honestly, but that’s a reason most for profit companies do. They are monitoring large financial decisions for reasonableness.
garciasn 1y ago
I have a degree in Public Administration. This is basically an MBA for the public sector; but, the difference between the two largely lies in an MBA looking for opportunities to maximize the business and its shareholders vs an MPA looking to implement policies that best serve the public good. Government employees are NOT well-equipped to compete with private sector ones; they don't think like them and they don't act like them. Why? Because the public sector is driven by a completely different model: bottoms-up management, led by the citizenry, not led top-down to maximize shareholder value. In addition, because private sector jobs pay 2x+ what the same level in a public sector organization will pay and thus the candidate pool is simply not at the level that you would expect at a similarly sized private sector organization. Because of this flip-flopped model of operation (bottoms-up vs top-down) Public/Private partnerships are NOT equal arrangements and the private sector companies know exactly how to leverage these differences in their favor. In this instance, a public sector employee may feel that paying more for a bus will better serve the public good because it /may/ be better engineered, have a longer lifetime, and offer value to the public that's above and beyond what a less expensive model will do. But! Even if the support staff look for multiple quotes from a variety of vendors, all of which may be at the cost level a private sector company may prefer, that public sector staff member may very well be directly overruled by the elected officials; who, for reasons that can only be hypothesized (take your pick: corruption, brand/personal preference, whatever) may prefer the more expensive vendors that were not included in the research and bidding process. While I have laid out that the public sector is not well-equipped for public/private partnerships and business dealings, there are MANY reasons for this including: candidate pool, different underlying model of operation, and elected official decisioning.
xnx 1y ago
> And if you're an ambitious, hard-nosed type that can really turn the screws on vendors, Absolutely not. Cost savings is career suicide in the public sector. The goal is to spend all budget and then beg for more. Regardless of ridership, the ironclad rule is "budget must go up".
- Volundr 1y ago
  It funny because having worked both in private industry and public (transit!) service, my experience is the exact opposite. In private anytime my department were coming in under budget on anything, there was always the end of the year pressure to spend it on something lest accounting take it away. Meanwhile in the public sector my team went to great lengths to get rid of vendor services that weren't providing value.
  - xnx 1y ago
    Good example. That budget behavior is common. Fortunately, if that has true negative effects, the market corrects by putting one company out of business.
    - Volundr 1y ago
      Let me know when the market gets around to that. At this time it's ignored all the ones I've worked for.
      - mh- 1y ago
        Is it "ignoring" it, or is it priced in to the company's valuation?
        Volundr 1y ago
        I mean could be, maybe their stock would be a touch higher, but it doesn't stop them from being some of the biggest players in their markets. A far cry from being "put out of business" as the commenter I replied to promised.

gjsman-1000 1y ago

That already exists in MetroTransit in Minnesota. The only company that was seriously interested for several years was Planned Parenthood. https://www.startribune.com/the-drive-birth-control-bus-ad-stops-some-people-short/483158471 https://www.startribune.com/the-drive-birth-control-bus-ad-s... This did not improve public sympathies for bus service broadly speaking.

PaulHoule 1y ago
It's a pet peeve of mine that buses in my city have wrap-around ads for a car dealer an hour's drive away. (Turns out all the car dealers in this area are owned by the same people) Then there was that bus which had a supergraphic that made the whole bus look like an MRI machine advertising the medical center.
- gjsman-1000 1y ago
  Personally, I'm not opposed to bus service; quite the opposite. Especially if I could bring an eBike. However, buses can and should feel safe for everyone, whether you're 5 years old or 95 years old, a US citizen or a visitor from Japan, whether it's 2 PM or 2 AM. In the United States, they absolutely don't. This can be fixed, but nobody has the political will to be perceived as a little mean.
  - PaulHoule 1y ago
    In my town all the buses have a bus rack in the front that fits up to two bikes or e-bikes. I perceive buses in my town be very safe. I definitely see emotionally disturbed people downtown and near the homeless colony behind Wal-Mart, but I don't see them on the bus.
    - gjsman-1000 1y ago
      In Minnesota, we built light rail... with an honor system for boarding. It got so bad, especially on the middle cars (the "party cars") after COVID, that the middle car was retired and they are now in Year 3 of a security improvement plan. https://www.metrotransit.org/public-safety https://www.metrotransit.org/public-safety They are also retro-fitting screens into the buses, showing the buses' own live camera feeds, to further reinforce the perception of being watched. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SBd3wno61k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SBd3wno61k It's still not working in some areas. https://www.startribune.com/minneapolis-46th-st-light-rail-crime/601374022 https://www.startribune.com/minneapolis-46th-st-light-rail-c... https://www.instagram.com/karenthecamera/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/karenthecamera/?hl=en

crazygringo 1y ago

> still paying for custom paint schemes or colors Because you need to be able to recognize from a distance, hey that's a city bus. Not a charter bus. Not a school bus. Not a long distance bus. And buses aren't usually wrapped with advertising. It's usually just a banner on the sides below the windows. Some ad campaigns pay much more money to extend it over the windows with that mesh material. But that's generally a small minority. But even then the colors on front and top and often borders still clearly identify it. E.g. these are still very clearly public transit if you live there, which is what's important: https://contravisionoutlook.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/singapore-bus.jpg https://contravisionoutlook.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads... https://contravisionoutlook.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/50-shades.jpg https://contravisionoutlook.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads...

SoftTalker 1y ago
School buses are a distinctive bright yellow, there's no mistaking them for anything else. Charter and long distance buses don't stop at the city bus stops. City buses will still have a sign/screen displaying the route number/name.
- Jcowell 1y ago
  There’s a difference between spotting a bus at the stop and distance away and the actions you will take accordingly. You want the bus to be identifiable as possible.
- crazygringo 1y ago
  Yeah but the point is you want to look down the street and see if there's a city bus a few blocks away or not. If so, hurry up and walk the block to the bus stop. If not, quickly grab a coffee or decide to grab a Citibike or whatever else that depends on that information. Spotting buses a few blocks away is a crucial skill in cities.
  - tallanvor 1y ago
    It really isn't when many cities have apps that give you real-time information as to when to expect the next bus.

bluGill 1y ago

I hate those advertising wraps. Most of them cover the windows that I as a rider want to look out of (you can see out, but they are not clear). If I don't want to look out give me a window shade, but when I want to look out I want to be able to see.

stronglikedan 1y ago
get your own bus and you can do what you want with it! /s
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]