Safe Ride will be transitioned from the jurisdiction of University Police to Parking and Transportation by summer 2016, a move meant to expand the service’s capacity.
Safe Ride, a University transportation service, aims to provide safe night travel to students who would otherwise have to walk alone on or near Grounds.
Student Council President Abraham Axler, a third year College student, announced the transition at Student Council’s Tuesday meeting, and said the change should expand, but not fundamentally alter, operations.
“Safe Ride will be taken away from University Police Department jurisdiction and put under Parking and Transportation, which will increase ridership dramatically, although it will be functionally similar,” Axler said.
The goals of the switch are to maximize utility to students, said Courtney Zerrenner, director of university relations for Student Council.
“We believe that this decision will address many of the concerns we have with off-Grounds safety,” Zerrenner said. “We have found that students are not taking advantage of existing resources, and those resources are not technologically up to date.”
The van service currently faces problems of limited hours and a low number of vans, Zerrenner said. Most student complaints involved slow response times and poor routes for students.
Further changes are still being discussed by the after hours transportation working group, including routes, branding of Safe Ride, how to request changes to Safe Ride, and the vomit policy, Zerrenner said in a follow-up email. None of these changes have yet been decided.
The decision to transfer control of the service to the transportation department came out of focus groups which included students, Director of University Parking and Transportation Becca White and Officer Ben Rexrode, who is UPD’s crime prevention coordinator.
“As we move forward, students are involved in current discussions about what the service will ultimately provide, including but not limited to possibly rebranding the service and enhancing GPS-based technology,” they said in a joint email statement.
Discussions to determine the future operations of the service will continue through February 2016, and final changes will be made over the summer.
Read this article translated into Chinese here.
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