CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE BASRA, Iraq – For all intents and purposes, the average Soldier on Contingency Operating Base Basra travels upon one main road, a 12-kilometer loop that, with its tributary avenues, covering most of the base. This route, which is really a collection of assorted streets, brings Soldiers past the airport, the chow halls and the post exchange before winding back around to the living areas and back to the airport.
Every day, Soldiers use this road to get where they need to go; they use this road because it is the route of the buses of Al Dalham Company, which provides Soldiers with transportation on COB Basra.
Al Dalham Company, a general contracting company, was founded in Basra and has branches in Kuwait and Dubai. The company operates more than 185 vehicles on COB Basra, including the familiar short and egg-shaped buses that ferry Soldiers around the base. At any given moment, there are 14 buses in circuit around the COB: seven even-numbered buses traveling clockwise and seven odd-numbered buses traveling counterclockwise.
The only exception is the period from 1 to 5 a.m., when there are only six buses, three clockwise and three counterclockwise, said Hyder Deaf, Al Dalham camp manager. “You need to wait fifteen minutes to get a bus (at night),” Deaf said, “while in day we do six minutes between each bus.”
Deaf said Al Dalham’s goal is that a bus comes to each of the 20 stops about every six minutes.
“If you are now standing at bus stop number six,” said Deaf, “you will now wait for six minutes for the other bus coming in the opposite direction.”
The bus stops consist of thin metal overhangs above a white metal bench; here Soldiers sit and wait and sometimes unwind.
“Sometimes, it might be refreshing to just relax,” said Lt. Col. Kevin Nygaard, a Hastings, Minn., native and net operations officer, 34th Red Bull Infantry Division. “We typically work 14 to 15 hours a day and it’s nice, because all you can really do is sit and relax.”
“I feel impatient, but kinda relaxed when I’m sitting there,” said Spc. Dusti Fetters, a Lino Lakes, Minn., native and human resource specialist, 34th Inf. Div.
Conversely, you’ll find some Soldiers waiting for a bus are fragile creatures; like insomniacs, they can do nothing but wait, and their disposition suffers for it.
“I’m angry and wanting to get on the bus and go,” said Pfc. Aron Vonzel, a Bloomington, Minn., native and HR specialist, 34th Inf. Div.
“It’s annoying. Boring. It makes me angry,” said Spc. James Belland, a Maplewood, Minn., native. “You’ll be sitting there and you’ll see three buses going the other way.”
While some Soldiers hate waiting, other Soldiers are willing to wait far beyond the time it would have taken to walk to work in an example of the sunk cost fallacy, an economic term first described by Barry M. Staw in 1976. The sunk cost fallacy describes a phenomenon where the amount of investment already lost justifies continued investment; in this case, the probability of continuing to wait for a bus seems to increase with the amount of time already wasted at the bus stop.
“If I waited for 30 minutes, even if it was 10 minutes, there’s no way I’m going to leave and walk, because the second I leave, I know the bus is going to come,” said Pfc. Michael Matheson, paralegal, 34th Inf. Div.
While many Soldiers grumble about the wait times, an analysis of 97 buses for two days, during the hours of 3 to 7 p.m., found that overall Al Dalham met their goal of six minutes between buses. The average time between buses was 6.37 minutes and the most common wait time was six minutes, occurring 14 percent of the time. On the other hand, 12 buses arrived within one minute or less of the previous bus, which indicates improper spacing and six buses trailed by 15 minutes or more, including gaps of 22, 23 and 24 minutes.
However, Al Dalham met their goal of 12 minutes or less 88 percent of the time during the study, a feat Deaf attributes to Kadim Ali, Al Dalham bus supervisor, who is responsible for keeping the buses on a timely schedule.
“He deals with the drivers, the buses,” Deaf said. “He’s responsible for the times and the routes. He’s looking for the time when the buses should go.”
“The drivers, they have a scheduled time to stop, each of the drivers have a time to be at the bus stop,” said Deaf. “So he will keep watching them; if one of them is late, he will stop them.”
“Always I keep the time, and always I make the round to check on the buses, the drivers,” said Ali, who is thinking of adding a stop and putting radios into the buses. “They have schedules so they should comply with the schedule.”
Deaf said if Soldiers have issues or have lost anything on the buses, they can talk to the mayor’s cell, who will forward their concerns to him.
Alternatively, many Soldiers choose to walk wherever they need to go on COB Basra.
“I walk,” said Sgt.1st Class Angela Amundson, a Hastings, Minn., native and HR sergeant with the 34th Inf. Div. “Free exercise.”
