School bus: A scenario.

[Nobel Hobos]

This is the scenario: you are a school administrator in a small town with only one school. You have one bus, and 100 students to deliver to and from school.

60 of the students live on the other side of town (it's a bad town, spread out to two sides on the only road through, separated by an industrial wasteland which once was the the core of the town, where no children live now). 30 students live on the same side of town as the school. 10 of your students live on surrounding farms which take a long time to drive to.

I'm sure that before deploying your one bus, which has a capacity of 60, you will ask what alternative means of transport there are for the students. There are none. They can only get home by bus. This is a scenario, and any students who could get home by being picked up by their parents have already been discounted. Perhaps your school has 200 students and half of them are taken home by private means (parents, friends, paid employees) but that doesn't matter. YOU have 100 students to deliver home, 60 of them live on the other side of town, 30 live on the same side of town, and 10 live far away ... and you are responsible for getting them all home. You have one bus.

And no, they can't walk home. There are pterodactyls, and the only way the kids are safe is if the bus stops right outside their house and they run for their lives. This is a scenario.

Got that? Give me your opinion within the terms of the scenario.

Now, what is the fairest way to use your school bus? You can deliver 60 kids home with your bus, but you have to drive across town first, and then drive back. Delivering the 60 kids home takes four times as long as delivering the 30 kids home (double for the driving time to the other side of town, and double again because the bus has to stop for each kid who gets off). 30% of the kids who could have been home while the bus was still crossing town are waiting in the school gym, being intimidated by bullies because you can only afford one teacher for this out-of-hours custody (and they can't leave, 'cos of pterodactyls).

I think we can pretty much assume that the 10 kids who live way out of town will be the last home. I don't see any justice in making the other 90 kids wait while while the bus does the rounds of their far-flung homes. But answer me this: would you use the bus to get the majority (other side of town, 60) home first, or to get a minority (this side of town, 30) home first?

I tried to compose this scenario a few months ago, to post here. I did it much better than this, but for veracity I recomposed it in this last fifteen minutes. I am panicked by the complete debacle of the other thread I started (justice in the flip-flop state of toilet seats). I will address horrible flaws in this scenario if they are pointed out in the first two pages, and edit this to account for them, but after that ... sufficient unto the day is the foolishness thereof. Learning from my failure in the other thread, I WILL NOT POST again to this thread until it psses two pages.

[Barringtonia]

Clearly the 60 kids first is better since you can then take the 40 kids, if you take the 30 kids first you would then need to take 3 trips instead of two.

[Vortiaganica]

I assumed that the 30 kids and 60 kids and faraway 10 were in completely different areas, meaning you'd have to return to school anyway to get to the faraway area.

Since you spend 4 times the time to deliver twice the kids if you go with the 60 at first, you should start with the thirty.

Otherwise, yes, 60 would come first, as you'd basically have the 40 as being one group.

[Lackadaisical2]

We ought to minimize total time spent waiting, I suppose.

1. Wait time if we send the 30 first:

70x1 + 10x4= 110

2. Wait time if we send the 60 first:

40x4+10*1= 170

Although, if one wants fairness...

In scenario 1 we have:
60 waiting 1
10 Waiting 5
30 waiting 0

In Scenario two we have:
60 waiting 0
30 waiting 4
10 waiting 5

Scenario one still seems fairer to me, no matter what those ten kids are going to wait 5. Of course, we could always switch the schedule around so each child spends the same amount of time waiting as the others do

We'd need more info to get any sort of a guess on what the average time spent in transit is, as opposed to the wait times alone, although we could make some reasonable assumptions... hell, then we could assign differing 'values' to time spent waiting and time spent in transit (personally, I dislike being on a bus a lot more than waiting ata bus stop, for example).

[Vortiaganica]

Actually, if you look at it, depending on how long it takes to send the 10 kids to their homes, it could be best to do 30-10-60, so that the time taken to get back from the end of the 60 kids run isn't waiting time for someone other than the innocent driver (and who knows, maybe he lives down that path)

[Pattersonistan]

Host a fundraiser. Buy bicycles for the children. Or just leave them to fend for themselves amongst the pteradactyls. Survival of the fittest, and cure child obesity!

[Lackadaisical2]

Actually, if you look at it, depending on how long it takes to send the 10 kids to their homes, it could be best to do 30-10-60, so that the time taken to get back from the end of the 60 kids run isn't waiting time for someone other than the innocent driver (and who knows, maybe he lives down that path)

The OP states that the final 10 go last, presumably it takes much, much longer to get them home.

[Tatec]

Call in the US military to kill the dinosaurs then continue with your job as normal. ,

[IL Ruffino]

The ones that live closest to the school walk.
The farthest away get picked up first, middle kids second.
The middle kids get dropped off first, farthest kids last.

This is how my old school did it.

[SaintB]

I'm sure I can get federal money for a second bus, failing that hold a fundraiser for a second bus; if the parents can't help pay for a second fucking bus they can figure out how to get the kids home themselves.

[Xaninthia]

As far as minimizing waiting time goes, assuming it takes the 30 one hour to get home, it will take the 60 four hours to get home, including returning to the school. That is, 61 effective hours waiting if the 30 go first, compared to 124 effective hours waiting if the 60 go first. As such, to minimize time spent waiting, the 30 should be taken home first, then the 60..

Logically however, the 60 would go first, because the 30 and 10 could then both be picked up, rather then only taking one group at a time, which also leaves the teacher free to leave sooner (4 hours rather than 5).

There is no fairest way in this scenario, because the fairest way depends on who you're biased towards, the minority or majority. All I've done is show reasoning behind a choice either way, rather than making the decision myself. If I were forced to make a decision, I would be taking the 60 home first, because it would cost the school less money (teacher's wage), please more people, and be more logical (only need to make two trips back to the school).

At it's root, this is obviously a question of pleasing the majority (more people, but takes longer) or the minority (less people, takes less time). Nothing you do short of buying a second bus will please everyone, so it's up to the administrator to rationalise their decision and hope the parents are okay about it.

[Call to power]

the bus obv does a circuit over an hour period stopping at every stop because children are stupid and you can't organize them (I may also say send the youngest out first or fuck it off on some lowly temp to solve)

[Koffiedik]

60 kids can take out any bully, so they'll have to wait the longest.
Unless they start rioting.

[Esternial]

The 60 first, then you put those 30 and 10 children on the bus and drop off the 30, followed by the last 10 one by one.

They should bring something to keep them occupied if they know they life that far away from their school.

[Ifreann]

Travelling Salesman Problem? Hold on, I'll go ask some bees.

[Georgism]

Sell the bus and buy bikes for everyone.

[Innsmothe]

Do what some British primary schools do.

The 'walking schoolbus' where a teacher leads a long chain (holding hands of course) of students to and from school.

[Ifreann]

Do what some British primary schools do.

The 'walking schoolbus' where a teacher leads a long chain (holding hands of course) of students to and from school.

Won't the pterodactyls just kill them all then?

[Innsmothe]

Do what some British primary schools do.

The 'walking schoolbus' where a teacher leads a long chain (holding hands of course) of students to and from school.

Won't the pterodactyls just kill them all then?

Okay...have them led by the groundsman with his stereotypical hunting-piece.

[Galloism]

Do what some British primary schools do.

The 'walking schoolbus' where a teacher leads a long chain (holding hands of course) of students to and from school.

Won't the pterodactyls just kill them all then?

This is America. The teacher has a giant pterodactyl killing gun.

[Ifreann]

Won't the pterodactyls just kill them all then?

Okay...have them led by the groundsman with his stereotypical hunting-piece.

That's bound to lead to a "Clever Girl" scenario. I think selling the bus and school in paying for anti-pterodactyl weapons for every home would be better. Kids could be home-schooled until sales of pterodactyl meat made enough to re-open the school.

[Esternial]

Won't the pterodactyls just kill them all then?

This is America. The teacher has a giant pterodactyl killing gun.

It's more for general-purpose killing. From vermin to annoying salesmen.

[Ifreann]

Won't the pterodactyls just kill them all then?

This is America. The teacher has a giant pterodactyl killing gun.

See above: "Clever Girl"

[Bafuria]

Throw the seats out of the bus.

[Ashmoria]

what we used to do when i was a kid was have one area picked up first in the morning and taken home first in the afternoon and one group picked up last in the morning and taken home last in the afternoon.

that way no kid has to spend way more time than the others AT school.