The Freshman 15 (Minutes): Rutgers Makes Life Easier All the Way to Graduation

Filed Under AVL Systems, Feature Stories, Success Stories, University Transit

Thanks to NextBus, students get around campus quickly and reliably

College poses plenty of challenges as students acclimate themselves to a new way of living. The stress of a new environment, financial constraints, and academic obligations can lead to quite a few undesirable attributes, from weight gain to acne.

But, at least in one area, Rutgers is enabling its new and returning students to maneuver easily and inexpensively with its AVL powered bus system. They are finding that they can forego private transportation for the first time in their lives and give buses the old college try—which should help reduce stress from parking fees and traffic, promote physical activity, and reduce ambient pollution that can (gasp!) clog pores.

However, the benefits of trading in private cars for University buses can be overshadowed by frequent problems such as delayed, uncertain or canceled arrivals. And, if you thought coffee-clutching commuters could be uptight about missing a morning meeting, just talk to an ambitious 18-year-old during finals week. All that is history since the implementation of a NextBus AVL transportation system.

“People are not calling us anymore saying, ‘Where is this bus?’ People are not calling us anymore saying, ‘I was waiting a half-hour for the bus’…” Manager of Transit Services John Karakoglou of Rutgers University in New Jersey, a NextBus client since September 2005, no longer dreads the wrath of the student body. And he has NextBus to thank.

Since its launch at Rutgers, NextBus has helped reduce student complaints by 35%. This, of course, is a relief in itself; however, fielding fewer complaint calls also leads to increased efficiency, productivity, and job satisfaction among transit employees at both the administrative and operational levels. And with 65,000 riders each day, increasing student satisfaction with transit services was no easy task without NextBus technology.

Rutgers had been relying on a cadre of bus dispatchers armed with clipboards and pencils to record potential problem areas and convey them to transit administration. Karakoglou apparently does not miss the old days, “I don’t need anybody out on the street anymore to ask questions, see where there is a lot of traffic, if there are a lot of people waiting at the bus shelter. I don’t need five people out on the road when I can see everything from the command center.”

In addition to NextBus LCD displays, Rutgers has also equipped bus stops with security cameras and emergency phones. Karakoglou and team have taken the added step of installing NextBus monitors—which update data every six seconds—in popular student hang-outs. This means students can take that 15 minutes of waiting for the bus and do something constructive and stress-free, like adding more friends to their Facebook profile.

NextBus currently operates in 20 U.S. states and is rapidly expanding. For more information on bringing Next Bus to your location, contact Whitney Sones.

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