After reviewing a list of recommendations compiled by the Student Government Association (SGA) last fall, both the Hopkins Security Office and the Hopkins Department of Transportation announced this week that they will be making changes to the Homewood Security Escort Van.
The most significant changes are that there will be more routes added to the service and that the service will be re-named. In addition, the service has been bid out to Broadway Services, Inc. (BSI), and the management of the van will now be under the jurisdiction of the Parking and Transportation Office instead of the Security Office.
Employees who currently work on the Escort Van service will have to reapply for their job with BSI. Though most changes such as the addition of new routes will not go into effect until the upcoming fall semester, the service will be making the switch over to operation under BSI starting April 1.
“It will be run more like shuttle services like the Homewood JHMI Shuttle with defined routes and scheduled departure times. By fall of 2011, we won’t be defined by our one mile radius,” Associate Director of Plant Operations Greg Smith said.
The changes are being implemented after a proposal from the SGA that came to the Security department last fall.
The proposal, spear-headed by senior Sean Murphy, outlined a list of suggested changes based off of a survey the SGA sent out to the student body concerning the van service. Among them was a recommendation to have a more structured and reliable route service, as well as a route service that was better tailored to the demand of the student body.
According to the survey, over 40 percent of students who responded claimed that they felt unsafe waiting for the vans, 44 percent reported that they waited over 10 minutes for route service, 68 percent reported that they had given up waiting for routed service and 75 percent said they had given up waiting for point-to-point service.
Murphy said that the biggest point of the SGA’s proposal was for the van to reduce point-to-point calls by creating more routes.
“Right now, way too many people were using the point to point service. People said they were waiting 30 minutes for a van, and that was just unacceptable,” Murphy said.
“This is something I’ve been looking at for a while . . . When we put out the survey and there were over a thousand responses indicating that all the anecdotal evidence that I’ve heard was certainly supported, it warranted some change.”
In the past, the escort van has been under the jurisdiction of the Security department. Major Frank Richardson, coordinator of Escort Services, explained that when the escort van first started running in 1984, the demand was not as high as it has become among students.
The security office is only equipped to hire casual employees (employees that work less hours than part-time employees). Richardson stated that he was glad that the service would be changing over to Transportation because it would allow them to better accommodate the students’ needs.
“Transportation will probably be a little more equipped with staff and there will be less restriction on hours. We use a lot of casual employees; they only do a thousand hours a year. With Parking and Transportation, they’ll be able to have more hours, even some full-time drivers, so basically you’re enabling yourself to have a fuller schedule, more consistency, [and] it’s better for students,” Richardson said.
“In the beginning, the drivers tell me there were only three or four vans. It’s an evolving service because the campus is always expanding.”
From 2009-2010, the van service transported a total of 115,686 passengers, with 88,188 utilizing the point-to-pint service, and 27,498 students. This is an increase from two years ago where a total of 106,870 students were transported, with 29,135 using routed services and 77,735 using point-to-point.
Smith emphasized that the new escort van will run more like the JHMI shuttle. It will be more route-emphasized, and there is a hope that with a larger radius of route coverage, there will be significantly less point-to-point calls, which should decrease the amount of time students are left waiting.
The Transportation Office has also addressed the complaint that students have about being left to wait indefinitely.
The new escort service is planning to implement tracking devices in each vehicle so that students will be able to track the vans in real-time online as well as check an online schedule to see how soon a route van will be arriving at their stop.
There are currently 10 vans in the escort fleet, and according to Smith, there are not yet plans to increase the fleet’s size. He states the cause as the fact that they do not have enough money in their budget to accommodate the purchase of more buses.
“We’re not increasing the fleet; we’re going to be deploying more of them on routes. We’re trying to run it with basically the same budget, so we’re trying to use those budget dollars more effectively,” Smith said.
“It is not currently in the plans [to increase fleet]. If demand warrants it, I’m sure the University will re-evaluate that. But the goal now is to carry as many if not more people to more destinations using the resources we have on more fixed routes.”
One of the benefits to the service switching to Transportation is that they will be able to consider planning out a route to Hampden. Richardson did say that security had run a trial route to Hampden last semester, but they have since discontinued it.
Many students have noted the recent addition of large Veolia buses occasionally running the escort van routes, but these Veolia buses will not be a part of the changed program under Transportation. It was the Veolia buses that ran the Hampden route.
“We didn’t have the manpower to fully staff the Hampden route, [and] we never gave it a full chance to give it a full review. It was just a trial and it was never made public; it was more something we did internally to see how the dispatch could use their discretion on a need basis,” Richardson said.
Smith said that currently, there are a few potential routes being considered being added, one of which being a route running to Hampden, a route that runs from the MSE Library through Charles Village and a route that runs down to 22nd street where there are a number of Korean restaurants that students frequent.
The escort van hours will most likely change starting next semester, with routed van service starting earlier.
However, he does plan to switch the balance of routed versus point-to-point vans, with more vans being on routes instead of on point-to-point assignments.
Many students voiced their relief that the service would finally be undergoing a change.
“I’m really happy that they’re making the changes. I think they should have done this sooner. I hope to see people that answer your phone calls, and I hope the vans come promptly rather than taking a while to be dispatched,” junior Rachel Tillman said.
Senior Joonhee Cho added that the delays in the escort vans really did cause safety concerns. He explained that though he has been using the vans since his freshman year and has only recently had a problem, he became concerned at the service after an incident in which he waited in below freezing temperatures in a dangerous neighborhood for over two hours.
“I repeatedly called them over six times total, and I did send them an email because I honestly thought that if that happened to someone else who had a medical condition or their body was more susceptible — I just didn’t think that would be very safe. Also it’s not a very safe area to be standing outside,” Cho said.
“I agree that a really helpful change would be letting a student caller know by when they’ll be able to expect the van coming. I think when you’re in a situation where you’re outside off campus and it’s dark and you’re by yourself, there is a difference between a person telling you it’ll come when it gets there and you need to wait, and telling you it’ll be there in x minutes.”
Others expressed that their previous frustrations with the escort van would never change their perception of the service.
“Most of it’s waiting for 30 minutes in front of Uni Mini, in the rain, calling a billion times. I hate it and I don’t even use it anymore; it’s not worth it,” senior Greg Schlichter said.
“It’s Hopkins: they’re gonna hear the complaints, and then they’re going to mess it up somehow.”
In addition, some students felt that even if route service increases, they would still use point-to-point calls just because they feel safer that way and it’s just more convenient than looking up a schedule.
“I know that route vans exist, but I always call for point-to-point, even if I know it’s on a route because I don’t want to wait for the route van and I’m not sure exactly what times the vans come. Also, sometimes I’m just too lazy to check the schedule,” junior Charles Duyk said.
Senior Tian Han agreed.
“I always use point-to-point except when I’m at the Rotunda when I know that the shuttle runs really often there. With the changes, I’ll probably use the shuttle service less if it means I’ll have to wait longer for point-to-point service,” he said.
The Transportation department will be holding a contest to rename the van service in the upcoming weeks.
Some options suggested by the SGA are The Blue Jay Shuttle, The Homewood Area Shuttle, The Night HopShuttle, The Hop Shuttle, and The Jay Shuttle. Students can vote on their favorite choice at www.surveymonkey.com/s/yzn6dyq.
