Transportation, Technology, Education -- Long Term Trends

This post has nothing to do with any decisions for this year or next, except possibly for the Superintendent search where some people might want to ask candidates for their thoughts about long term trends. The bottom line is that this week's news on transportation technology may make a cost-saving merger more feasible but less necessary, in interesting ways.

First, remember (for those who have followed my previous arguments) that I came to oppose the merger when I learned that it would shift costs (from teaching to transportation) without appreciable overall net savings. There were other issues, major issues, but it was at that point that I stopped thinking "unfortunate necessity" and started thinking "nonsense." I did, however, note that transportation costs per mile might go down, e.g. if natural-gas bus transport options improved. And this week I do see a possible future lower-cost option.

The University of Delaware (where I started out teaching computer science in 1980, back when the ARPAnet was a few sites, and international email waited until midnight to be picked up and sent via 1200-baud modem) now reports on "V2G" (Vehicle-to-Grid) electric vehicle technology; Science Daily says Diesel bus alternative: Electric school buses that power grid could save school districts millions

Choosing a V2G-capable electric bus over a diesel bus would save a school district $6,070 per bus seat, or $230,000 per bus over the vehicle's 14-year lifespan. Even with taking out the medical and climate change costs associated with diesel pollution, school districts could still save $5,700 per seat.

"They could save a large amount of money while also shifting away from the consumption of diesel and enhancing school children's health," the authors write in the paper.

There is still a way to go before such V2G-capable school buses become a reality, however. Electric school buses are uncommon, with the first Trans Tech all-electric school bus tested in California earlier this year.

While electric school buses can be cost-competitive without providing V2G services, the V2G technology would produce substantially larger savings for school districts.

That's pretty cool, and it might work -- and if it had worked already as part of the merger plan, I suspect that the numbers would have looked quite different and we'd have merged, despite the problems it would have caused in other directions. However, this week also has a much more in-the-news transportation technology announcement, in the "Official Google Blog" at Just press go: designing a self-driving vehicle

We’re planning to build about a hundred prototype vehicles, and later this summer, our safety drivers will start testing early versions of these vehicles that have manual controls.

And what will the long-term impact of these be? Until this week, I had mainly thought of driverless cars in the context of urban driving. But now I take seriously TreeHugger's Google unveils its designs for a self-driving car, and it will change our cities and suburbs:

The self-driving car will certainly affect our cities, given that you need far fewer cars when they are shared and they don't need parking, but the real revolution is in the suburbs, which suddenly make a lot more sense. Grandma isn't stuck in the house all day; the kids get driven to school and to soccer practice; mom can work while the car drives to the office. Parking lots and garages disappear as the cars are shared and always on the move....

Tim de Chant says...

Self-driving cars are one of the biggest threats to the future of cities... As people’s commutes are freed up for other tasks, including work, they’ll stretch their daily trips, once again allowing them to live where they want. And as we’ve seen, people want to live where they have more space.

So it may well be that improved transportation will reverse the decline in upstate population.... Or not.

It's hard to predict, especially the future.