Transit Changes at Rutgers Shared at Student Meeting Highlight Value of NextBus Reporting Tools

Filed Under Best Practices, Feature Stories, Intelligent Transportation Systems, Transit Management Challenges, University Transit

The venerable Daily Targum reported on the expected disruptions that campus road construction will cause to student and community riders of the university bus system.

Director of Transportation Services Jack Molenaar and Manager of Transportation Planning Jennifer Stuart Lane hosted a transportation forum March 25, 2009 to present the department’s proposed changes to bus routes and parking permit rates for the upcoming year.

The Rutgers community has already benefitted significantly from the NextBus system. Since its 2005 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.

The NextBus real-time passenger system will mitigate the disruptive effect of these changes by keeping riders current on arrivals for every changed stop or altered route.

NextBus Can Isolate Instances of Bad Driver Behavior

The forum also gave an opportunity for students to express particular concerns about driver behavior. Molenaar indicated that NextBus reporting tools could identify instances of bad driver behavior from recorded videos. This enables transportation officials to take corrective action promptly.

The Daily Targum reported just how transit managers can benefit from NextBus technology:

Students raised concerns about bus drivers not stopping at stops or not stopping when they flag down the BrunsQuick Shuttle. Molenaar and Lane said students should contact the department when this happens.
“We can actually go into NextBus and track that. If you give us the time and just get the bus number we can then see yes, they did not stop for you and bring it up and show them the video and show the bus going by,” Lane said.
Molenaar said with the NextBus technology, they can go back and rewind every route and see exactly what a driver did or didn’t do and can view video at their stops, which have cameras.
“We do have drivers that aren’t good sometimes, and when they get a number of complaints we then ask that driver to be removed from service,” Molenaar said.

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