US cities pay too much for buses

There's also a bunch of PE money in the space for specialized vehicles, leading to the usual consequences. Fire trucks are the canonical example. Shittier trucks that take 3x longer to get and are dramatically less reliable.

There are about as many concrete trucks as there are fire trucks in the US (and like fire trucks some of the fleet is purpose built and some of the fleet is specialty bodies on normal-ish trucks) and they don't have comparable problems with PE buying the manufacturing up.

I think there's more to it than just evil PE

I’m on a city e&a board. A couple of PE groups have rolled up the remaining fire truck manufacturers. 3 companies own 75% of the market. This is a well known issue… Google away and there’s lots to read about. I know nothing about cement mixers.

A rig that was $500k in 2010 is $2-2.5M now. That’s “cheap” —- volunteer fire companies tend to pimp up the trucks (usually they are paid via grant), cities are cheap on capital spend.

It’s a squeeze play as if you don’t keep the trucks up to date with modern gear, insurers will raise homeowners premiums. Bad look for the mayor.