Added bus to alleviate routes busiest travel hours
The Campus Loop and 8th East Express bus routes will begin running a third Aggie Shuttle bus during peak hours, said shuttle supervisor Alden Erickson.
The change will take effect at the beginning of the new semester, when the extra bus will run along those two routes between 7:30-10:30 a.m.
Erickson said there may be some modifications based on scheduling, but the changes “should take some of the heat off” of the Stadium Express route as well.
“I think it’s perfect,” bus driver Denim Arnoldson said of the changes, “it’s where the need is.”
Erickson said there are currently eight buses out during peak hours, with room for about 70-75 on each bus.
“That’s without really cramming them in, I don’t like cramming as much as people might think,” he said.
With about 600 seats available, it is impossible to transport everyone that shows up in a 10-minute period during those peak hours, sometimes up to three or four times capacity. Arnoldson, who has driven on Aggie Shuttle routes for about three years, said when he drove the 8th East Express, sometimes both buses on the route would be at the same stop and fill up completely.
When that many people are waiting, “some are going to miss, some people will be walking,” Erickson said.
Arnoldson said a rush during peak hours usually lasts about 20 minutes, and because it takes about 15 minutes to complete a loop of a route, by the time the buses come around to the same stop again, people are late and they are “not happy.”
Although the additional buses weren’t originally planned into the transportation department’s budget, Erickson said the price of the new buses in fuel, mileage on the vehicles and pay for drivers is worth being able to serve the university better.
Erickson said the changes are in part due to the heavily customer service-oriented philosophy of new Parking & Transportation director James Nye.
Nye said during the last meeting the department had with the student fee board, only one question was posed: Why can’t there be more buses on the busy routes?
The meeting resulted in partial funding of the transportation department’s requests, Erickson said. Although much of the funding received will be going toward the purchase of two brand-new buses, the department also found a way to put additional buses on the road during peak hours.
“I think we can do both, without it hurting us,” Nye said.
With the costs associated with adding a bus to any given route, Arnoldsen said it will add to the per-rider cost of operating the shuttle system.
“From a business standpoint, I don’t know how efficient it will be,” he said, “but if it keeps the student body happy, then we did our job.”
The two new buses, to replace two smaller, worn buses, will likely arrive within the next two weeks, Erickson said. The older buses, which are a little more than 10 years old, will be traded in toward the purchase of the new ones. In their decade of use, they have been used daily and been “packed to the gills,” Erickson said, so they are nearing the end of their usability.
“Not a lot of places are using 10-year-old vehicles in mass transit,” Nye said.
One new 40-foot bus will be placed on the South Campus route, which Erickson said has seen dramatic growth in the last two semesters. Though the Aggie Shuttle usually sees more ridership during spring semester, Nye said this year’s unusual weather and early winter have caused a “significant influx” during the recent storms. Erickson said he tries to match more buses with the most ridership.
Those resources will increase with the additional buses scheduled to arrive this month, and two more Erickson said he hopes he will be able to get two more before February.
Driver Brock Elegante, a four-year veteran of the shuttle system, also said he didn’t think it would be cost-effective, but it will make riders happier.
He said, “The extra buses make sense when a lot of people are trying to get to class, but if it was all day it would be a waste of money.”
Nye said the additional buses next semester during those peak hours will “stretch us, maintenance-wise and budget-wise,” but he feels it was “just the right thing to do.”
He said he hasn’t heard any formal complaints, but students have asked for more availability and he doesn’t want to see people left behind.
– chelsey.gensel@aggiemail.usu.edu