Shuttle Removes Holes In Service

Students tapping their watches at shuttle stops last year may not have been aware that they had stepped into a half-hour service gap, created by mandatory union breaks uncovered by backup drivers.

But complaints were sufficient to warrant the hiring of a new driver, who will now fill gaps in the schedule, as well as augmenting on-demand van service and late-night service.

“We had heard from students that the gap times were inconvenient,” said Assistant Dean of the College Paul J. McLoughlin. “We felt that students were waiting at stops for too long.”

Between 8 and 9:30 p.m., Dawn Burleigh will cover the breaks of other shuttle drivers; between 10 p.m. and 12:00 a.m. she will join a fleet of two other vans in the on-call van service; and between 12:30 a.m. and 4 a.m., she will provide extended-hours service. In the past, shuttle service was interrupted at various times on all routes because of union contracts which stipulate a mandatory 30-minute “lunch break” in the middle of shifts. The breaks in shuttle service occurred between 8 and 9:30 p.m.

The addition of a fourth driver before 10 p.m. means that there will be no shuttle interruptions during the hours in which the buses are heavily frequented with students leaving for their rooms from the yard. “We have filled the need to provide more services to students at a key time,” said David Harris Jr., general manager of fleet management services and shuttle services for University Operations Services (UOS).

Though UOS hired Burleigh to eliminate service interruptions earlier in the evening, the driver will also provide late night shuttle service on a 90-day trial basis. “It covers the gaps and it will increase shuttle service until 4am,” said McLoughlin. “In many ways it made sense.” Additionally, the hiring of a new driver allows UOS to provide more services without having to pay other drivers overtime.

Matthew W. Mahan, president of the Undergraduate Council (UC), praised the improvement to late night service.

“Many students stay up until two, three, and four in the morning on any given night, so it’s important that we have shuttle coverage at those times,” he wrote in an e-mail.

The trial period for extended hours ends before the winter recess and the decision to make it permanent depends on student use. The driver will take account of who enters and exits the bus at each stop.

“We will look at the numbers, but there is not a critical number that we have in our heads to justify it into the spring,” said McLoughlin.

Carl Tempesta, manager of operations for Transportion Services, said that in the wake of last year’s sexual assault another benefit of the improved service will be the added safety. “The incidents that occured in the Harvard Square and Cambridge area have made us aware that services could be added to drop the fear factor,” he said. McLoughlin, however, said the addition was not motivated by safety concerns, but that improvements to safety were a “bonus.”

Mahan agreed that the shuttles will be a boon to campus safety. “As students percieve the shuttle to be more frequent, and therefore more convenient, I think that usage will increase, which in turn increases safety,” Mahan wrote. He added that he hopes that we continue to look at the roots of local crime and respond to it appropriately.

According to McLoughlin, the university also elected to scale back the hours of Harvard University Campus Escort Program (HUCEP) in response to low usage before 10:30 p.m., a decision Mahan called “very reasonable.”