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Tech disrupts the school bus — A Silicon Valley start-up promised to modernize school transportation. Instead, it stranded thousands of students (slate.com)

submitted 1 year ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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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.

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[–] Maven@lemmy.sdf.org 96 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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 30 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

[–] deweydecibel@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.

[–] nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 year ago

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

[–] deweydecibel@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

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