Procurement of Nonessential or Duplicative Equipment for the Advanced Design Bus

A review of the Urban Mass Transportation Administration grants showed some transit authorities are procuring possibly nonessential or duplicative equipment for the advanced design bus. The bus speedometer includes an odometer as standard equipment. However, several transit authorities are also buying hubodometers, which like an odometer, is a mechanical device used to record mileage. Approving funds for procuring two instruments performing the same function appears unnecessary.

Conflicting opinion exists as to the need for and the accuracy and reliability of both the hubodometer and odometer. Transit authority officials using both devices claimed that the hubodometers were more accurate than the odometers. However, neither warranty claims nor scheduled maintenance required the higher accuracy potentially available from the hubodometers whose validity was questionable.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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