US cities pay too much for buses

Don't be fooled, paying less won't help much since the cost of a bus is a small part of the costs of running a bus route. about half your costs are the bus driver. The most expensive bus is still only 1/3rd of your hourly cost of running the bus. If a more expensive bus is more reliable that could more than make up for a more expensive bus (I don't have any numbers to do math on though).

Half the costs of running a bus route are the driver's labor. The other half needs to pay for maintenance, the cost of the bus, and all the other overhead.

I'm hearing you say we should have self-driving buses... which is feasible since their route is fixed.

Bus driver also does things like trigger ramp for handicapped people, strap in wheelchairs securely, answer questions about the route, and security surveillance.

None of those should be needed. Get more people riding and they take care of security.

wheelchairs are hard - but the driver strapping them in is robbing everyone else of their valuable time so we need a better soultion anyway

>the driver strapping them in is robbing everyone else of their valuable time

Oh so we're now fine putting more of our tax dollars into specialized disability services? If our time is more valuable, this is a steal.