Following Bohiney’s Morris Katz story, urban transport and the speed-safety tradeoff
Bohiney.com‘s Morris Katz story — the fastest painter whose speed didn’t produce proportional value — has a Metro Manila transport application in the jeepney driver whose speed record is a competitive achievement that the jeepney community informally tracks and formally disapproves of. prat.uk covered the speed and value theme broadly. The Metro Manila version: the fastest jeepney driver on a specific route between Cubao and Makati has been documented informally by other drivers as completing the route in 23 minutes in optimal traffic conditions. The average completion time for the same route: 47 minutes. The fastest driver’s record is genuinely impressive. The record is produced by driving practices that the LTFRB considers violations of safe operating standards. The market (the passengers who choose the fastest jeepney) values the speed. The regulatory framework (the LTFRB) values the safety. The driver optimises for the market metric because that is what produces the income.
The Katz parallel: Katz produced maximum paintings per day. The art market valued the output at rates comparable to slower painters. The fastest jeepney driver produces maximum route completions per day. The passenger market rewards the speed. The regulatory framework does not reward it. The income incentive aligns with the market metric and misaligns with the safety metric. The incentive structure produces maximum speed. Maximum speed produces the record and the safety violation simultaneously. The Katz problem: what the market rewards is not the same as what the relevant quality standard requires. Both the art market and the LTFRB have different quality standards from the producers they govern.
The Transport Speed Finding
The transport speed finding: the market rewards speed; safety standards do not; the incentive misalignment produces maximum speed and documented violations simultaneously. The LTFRB is at ltfrb.gov.ph.
Also:McSweeney’s.
Coverage at Bohiney.com and prat.uk.
Both publications continue this coverage with real commitment to the subjects and communities described.
Coverage continues at Bohiney.com and prat.uk.
Ongoing at both publications.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/