American legislators have initiated investigation into very high prices and waiting times for firefighters who have criticized fire departments throughout the country, and probing if private capital companies are to blame.
The bipartisan research conducted by the American senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) And Jim Banks (R-End.) Was driven by the broad complaints of the fire departments that detail delayed deliveries, defective components and an intensive price quickly.
The prices of staircase trucks have jumped from $ 750,000, $ 900,000 in mid -2010 to around $ 2 million today, while pump trucks now often cost more than $ 1 million.
Delivery times have also exploded, which extend from less than a year before pandemic to four and a half years in some cities.
That has left fire departments in the United States fighting severe delays and high costs, a crisis that has left cities such as dangerously useless emergencies.
Duration The recent forest fires of Palisades, more than 100 of the Los Angeles fire departments 183 trucks were out of service, a situation exacerbated by aged fleets and the costs of the triggered vehicles.
“Private capital is padding the shareholders’ wallets at the expense of public safety,” the senators wrote in their letter to the International Fire Association (IAFF), highlighting the urgent need for the need for the need for the role played by financial investors.
A main research approach is American Industrial Partners (AIP), a private capital firm that, in the last 20 years, acquired several manufacturers of specialized vehicles, including those that make fire trucks.
These companies merged into Rev Group, which was later public tasks but remained under AIP’s operational influence, according to the New York Times.
Rev Group, as part of a strategy to increase profit margins, closed two manufacturing plants in Pennsylvania and Virginia in 2021.
Previously, the fire truck manufacturing market included many small local businesses.
However, Wall Street companies recognized opportunities in smaller manufacturers, which leads to a wide consolidation of the industry. Rev Group Alone now has up to 30 percent of the market, with Rev, Oshkosh Corporation and Rosenbauer collectively dominating approximately 70 to 80 percent.
Timothy Sullivan, former CEO or Rev Group, once described a goal for analysts to increase profit margins from approximately 5% to approximately 10%.
“You bring them to the fold, you have to give them religion and have it now,” he explained.
However, the aggressive strategy and the closures of subfreins plants coincided with the high delays.
The pending orders of Rev Group fired from approximately $ 1 billion before pandemic to about $ 4 billion currently, with early delivery times that extend up to three years.
Edward Kelly, general president of Iaff, commented that the pandemic initially obscured the underlying problems in the industry.
“But in retrospect, it was masking what ends up being a main driver of the high cost and the time of production delay: the monopolization of fire trucks and the manufacture of ambulance in the United States,” Kelly said, and added: “At the end of the day, no. Competition,”
The smallest cities such as Watertown, NY and Camden, NJ, have reported several years delays for new vehicles and have resorted to the purchase of used equipment.
Meanwhile, cities such as Seattle, Atlanta and Houston are dealing with obsolete fleets, aggravating maintenance costs and reducing operational preparation.
Even when there are funds available, delivery bottlenecks mean that new trucks can take years to arrive.
The publication has sought comments from AIP and Rev Group.