Expanding Escort Services: October 16

There has been a dramatic increase in the usage of Penn Transit Services during the past six years. In Escort Service alone, the number of passengers transported annually has grown from less than 80,000 in FY90 to 350,000 in FY96. With recent safety concerns on campus, we have experienced a further upsurge in demand: in the last two weeks over 1,500 passengers have been transported each night.

In light of this substantial increase in demand, we are taking the following steps, effective immediately following fall break on October 16, 1996:

  1. We will be adding 3 additional vans to our current complement of 15 vans to improve our response times and rider capacity.

  2. We will be increasing the frequency of both the eastern and western Penn Bus routes. They will now be running every half hour instead of every hour. Additionally, we will be working with several of the major apartment complexes west of campus to identify fixed pickup locations on a scheduled basis to eliminate the need to call and wait for a return trip to campus.

  3. We will be posting scheduled pickup times at oncampus transit stops for A, B and C vans at fifteen (15) minute intervals.

  4. The procedures for Escort and Loop vehicles will be changed to enable residents of the 3800 and 3900 blocks of Spruce and Walnut Streets to receive door to door service rather than requiring the use of walking escort to oncampus stops. Collaboration between Walking Escort and Penn Transit Services will be increased so that enhanced security is provided for customers walking to fraternities and sororities near Superblock.

Finally, we are appointing a committee of students, faculty and administrators to undertake a thorough review of Penn Transit Services to determine if there are ways to provide more effective and efficient services given the changes in volume and the geographical shifts in population density that have occurred over the past few years. This task force will intensively review systems data and procedures and will provide recommendations for further improvement in services.

--Presented at Council by President Judith Rodin, Distributed by Steven Murray, Vice President for Business Services


Almanac

Volume 43 Number 8
October 15, 1996


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