I feel for kids today and the hellscape that is american education. I sneaked thru public school right in the nick of time. Busses were something you could rely on. Now kids don't even have that and they get sent to the library that's now a prison for acting out.
I grew up with fully public bus service. K-12 never had a late bus once with the exception of emergency weather events
Same. I rode the bus right up until I got my license in my senior year and it was only severe weather events like a blizzard where it was suspended.
I also had this, across multiple school districts (changed schools several times).
And I was mostly very rural. Sure the trip took an hour or so because I was typically first on last off, but it was always there, and even waited for me if they saw me coming (1/4 mile driveway in one place, but never really close to the stop either way).
Where I am, school lunches are so carved up and privatized that it's just reheated "catering services" junk food that costs more than just having lunch ladies and a working cafeteria.
I don't know what I'll do if this "Zum" grift fucks this place up further.
Clearly the answer is further privatization and deregulation, because innovation in the bus marketplace is stifled
Now that Zūm has a funding stream, they can plow that back into lobbying efforts to guarantee the state keeps renewing the contract.
They're getting paid to get paid. The best business model in existence.
This is just the cost of disruption, and market efficiency. If those kids truly cared about going to school they would of bought the premium bus ride pass.
Do techbros have any gimmicks that don't involve privatizing something that already existed, putting a subscription model on it and lots of surveillance, then using a pompous brand name that's just a misspelled word?
Wonder who in the school board they bribed to get this contract. There's obviously no way that you can use a private contractor for the same bus service and have it come out cheaper; those parasites have to take their cut.
I think this was the startup of the week on TrashFuture once.
This is sad for the people affected, but it is also very funny when high tech fails, especially when the bus drivers themselves do likely know the routes and all that already.
