Jun
27
A lawsuit against Matson Navigation Co. accuses it and rival Horizon Lines of conspiring to overcharge their customers by assessing fuel surcharges in excess of actual fuel costs. The suit portrays Horizon as the civil equivalent of an unindicted co-conspirator. Horizon already faces some similar suits.
Matson said Thursday it had not yet been served, but understood that suits like this are not unheard of when the Justice Department is known to be investigating pricing practices. It said it would defend itself vigorously.
The most striking thing in the initial reports of the suit was a comparison of percentage increases in fuel prices and fuel surcharges. The percentage increase in the fuel surcharges was way, way bigger.
Let’s string ‘em up!
Actually, percentages are not so much numbers as comparisons of numbers, and comparisons which can be much misunderstood. If fuel prices rise a zillion percent and Matson surcharges rise a jillion percent, whether that’s wrong or not depends on what the starting fuel price was and what the starting fuel surcharge was. Which initial reports on the suit didn’t specify.
Here’s another example, from another issue Hawaii cares about, where percentages can be misleading. Suppose health care premiums were to rise 10% this year and 10% next year.
If you’re paying a premium of $100, a 10% increase makes it $110. But another 10% increase the following year makes it $121. The percentage increase is flat. But the actual dollar increase goes up, from $10 to $11.
It’s hard to resist the instinct to treat these numbers as if they had dollar signs in front instead of percentage signs in back. But it makes a difference.
To make an informed judgment about whether Matson and Horizon fuel surcharges are proper, here are some questions to ask:
- Was there ever any point at which the surcharge was actually covering 100% of fuel costs, or has it always defrayed a tiny bit of those costs? If the latter, large percentage increases might have increased the share of costs covered by surcharges, without necessarily ever approaching 100% of actual costs.
- Can market prices be used to make a judgment? Presumably Matson and Horizon made their own deals for fuel, and it is highly unlikely that these contracts always conformed precisely with whatever financial news media said the cost was for diesel or bunker fuel.
- Matson saved millions in fuel bills just by slowing its ships. Did it try to collect surcharge payment for fuel not used? If so, a person can be forgiven for considering that improper, even fraudulent. If not, then it could be that, far from ripping off customers, Matson has been taking decisive action on behalf of those customers.
Jun
25
Soul Food in Paradise
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We have a lot of cooks on “Sunrise,” and I’ve never felt compelled to blog about any of them before, even though some of the food on the set has been incredibly good.
For a segment we’re doing on Juneteenth (June 19 is the anniversary of emancipation in Texas, and it’s an increasingly popular celebratory holiday, like a St. Patrick’s Day for African Americans) we brought in “The Answer,” a funk band (well, sort of, they go beyond funk) and Mom’s Soul Food Restaurant. And I just realized the guy who did the cooking doesn’t have his own name on the card he gave me. Darn. Okay, I’ll just describe the food.
Hawaii has a spectrum of great food, but not so much soul food as this haole got used to in Washington, D.C. You can get ribs but rarely dry ribs (Memphis style) and it’s hard to get cabbage the Southern way because we do it the Korean way. In D.C., both were available.
So anyway, we were served breaded and fried catfish and snapper — I finished my work too late to taste the catfish but the snapper was super — smooth, tasty cabbage — sweet cornbread — and a sauce the guy made himself that was hot during chewing but smooth going down. I never did figure out how he did that.
If you’re intrigued, Mom’s Soul Food Restaurant is at 94-226 Leoku St. in Waipahu.
Jun
25
Mathematics and the Zipper Lane
Filed Under Sunrise on KGMB9 | Leave a Comment
On Tuesday, July 8, the Zipper Lane, the reversible rush hour car pool lanes from central Oahu to Honolulu, will go from HOV-2 to HOV-3.
Some viewers asked why the state Department of Transportation would try something that didn’t work when it was tried a few years ago. One even asked if it was a plot to hurt carpoolers, on the theory that they’re among the strongest supporters of rail. Conspiracy plots always entertain, don’t they? But the real reason for the change is mathematics, and mathematics may also cause the new policy to fail. Let me explain.
HOV-3 attracted few takers the first time, so the state compromised and went to HOV-2. That worked better, as indeed it has worked better in many cities. It works so well that some days the sheer number of two-occupant vehicles makes the Zipper Lane slower than the regular lanes. We’ve all seen that from time to time.
That phenomenon has intensified to the point where the math impels the state to resort to a second attempt at HOV-3.
The problem, of course, is that there many families with two people traveling the same direction – usually the husband and wife both working in town but sometimes a parent taking a child to school on the way to work — but few families where three are headed the same way.
So now, in order to continue zipping along in the car pool space, pairs of people from the same family will need to find some acquaintance or stranger to join for the ride into town. (If you are in this fix, and want helps, call 692-7695 or email Rideshare@hawaii.gov. You might also consider getting into the vanpool program. For information on that, call 596-8297.)
The problem arises if, as another viewer suggested, the number of people who find a third rider turns out to be less than the number of current HOV-2 riders who do not find an extra passenger, are forced back into the regular lanes, and then decide, screw it, they’ll both drive in separately for the flexibility.
Suppose there are 10 vehicles, Group A, now moving through the Zipper Lane for which third riders are found, 10 people now driving solo in the regular lanes — and 10 other vehicles, Group B, now moving through the Zipper Lane for which third riders are not found and the remaining two begin driving separate vehicles solo in the regular lanes.
Let’s do the math. In this scenario, Group A will pull 10 vehicles out of the regular lanes without adding any vehicles to the Zipper Lane. Group B will pull 10 vehicles out of the Zipper Lanes and add 20 vehicles to the regular lanes. So, the Zipper Lane will wind up with 10 fewer vehicles, while the regular lanes will wind up with 10 additional vehicles.
The success or failure of the policy will depend on whether Group A and Group B really are equal or whether there are more Group B vehicles. There is little question that the Zipper Lane will become less congested. The issue is how much worse the regular lanes will get. In order for them not to get worse, HOV-3 has to pull a car out for every HOV-2 car that goes back in.
Traffic planners think like this. They do studies, too, and sometimes learn things that strike the rest of us as counterintuitive. For example, as speeds slow on Interstate highways, those roads can carry more vehicles, because the space between them is reduced. But this stops working at a particular speed — I think it’s around 40 mph but I can’t recall for sure — and after that, any further slowing actually reduces a road’s vehicle capacity.
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