Bus Stops and Breakthroughs

Buses taught me about overcoming conflicts.

Russell Ackoff described a conflict between bus drivers and bus conductors in a large European city:

“Each bus has a driver and a conductor. The closer the driver keeps to schedule, the more he is paid. The fewer fares the conductor fails to collect, the more the conductors are paid.

“To avoid delays during rush hours, conductors usually let passengers board without collecting their fares and try to collect them between stops. Because of crowded conditions on the bus, they cannot always collect all fares and signal the driver to move on in time. This causes delays that are costly to the driver.”

This situation led to a conflict: buses ran late, drivers earned less, and there were a “number of violent episodes” between drivers and conductors.

The bus company proposed changing incentives to prevent more conflict. However, the proposal was quickly rejected as it would reduce overall pay. The proposal also wouldn’t solve the underlying conflict: collecting all fares whilst keeping to schedule.

Whilst bus departures needed to be delayed so that conductors had time to collect all fares between stops (circled red), this assumed that conductors had to work on a crowded bus where they could not move quickly.

What if the conductors didn’t need to work on a crowded bus, and were instead relocated to bus stops? They could then fares from the orderly line of passengers before they embarked.

Ackoff continues:

“During rush hours there were more buses in operation than there were stops in the system. Therefore, conductors were moved off the buses at peak hours and placed at the stops to collect fares, and from where they could signal drivers to move on.

At off-peak hours, when the number of buses in operation was fewer than the number of stops, conductors returned to the buses.”

The takeaway? As Goldratt reminded us, ”there is always a win-win solution” to conflicts, and debugging assumptions is our bus ticket for getting there.

NB: This article draws on Ackoff’s Management in Small Doses. Quotes were modified for clarity and brevity.