Delhi’s Blueline buses are notoriously deadly, perhaps due to a perverse incentive system that rewarded drivers for speedy progress and discouraged investments in the vehicles. Dave Prager, who investigated the buses last year,?has an update: Delhi has recently reformed its bus system, phasing out the Blueline buses and replacing them with shiny new buses. More importantly, the payment model has changed: “The Delhi government will provide the companies Rs.27-42 as earning per kilometre even when the service runs into losses, but it will take the ticketing amount.” “[F]rom the broader perspective of making the city safer and the commute more reliable, this framework is a huge improvement,” writes Prager. “Especially when one learns that the drivers themselves will be city employees, and the buses will be monitored by GPS.” [%comments]
In Delhi, a Safer Bus Line?
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I don’t understand why the drivers aren’t paid per hour or on a salary. Do they all park in alleys and snooze without incentives to work? Or block up their wheels and run the odometers up?
I would think a bus driving job is a good and normal way to earn a living….
How does making the employees government employees make the buses safer?
@alex in chicago
So let me get this straight: you decide that the best way to contribute to this discourse is to a) not read the article, and then b) submit a comment that asks a question that is directly answered by the article you didn’t read?
As you’ll read in the article, decoupling the driver’s salary from the bus’s revenue means the driver won’t drive like a maniac. As you’ll also read, this is a problem because Delhi’s bus drivers kill over 100 people a year.
Or it will result in a less selective choice of bus operators making everyone worse off.
Classic example of a government doing what it should not do, because it is not competent enough to do what it should do… Instead of enforcing traffic rules (and penalizing drivers / bus owners who break them), they will hire thousands of overpaid government drivers to drive buses (as rashly in many cases, just for the thrill of it) at tax payers expense
One thing I remember from my days riding buses – it’s been a few years since I did so regularly – is that the skill of the driver makes a hell of a difference to the speed he gets round, all other things being equal. The better drivers look further ahead, have less variation in speed, are smoother, and also get round the route quicker. That’s not because they reach a higher top speed – if anything, they tend to be slower than the maniacs on the bits where the maniacs drive fast – but because they avoid much of the stopping and starting that slows the maniacs average speed right down.
I think the best incentive for drivers would be an all-round increase in wages, coupled with making them buy their own fuel. Smooth, sensible driving is extremely fuel efficient compared to ragging it.
Awesome discussion so far. I read one of the comments by Garvit Sah and had a question about drivers and conductors being government employees. Was that an assumption ? From what I understood is there will be a 60-40 (govt-corp) split in this sector. If the corporate has its own drivers/conductors, wouldn’t they be incentivized to make longer routes to increase km’s. ( I know GPS will track it to some extent).
RC