The University Transit Service is piloting two new transportation services this spring — UTS Night Pilot and UTS OnDemand — to improve the transportation options available to students at night.
Prior to the pandemic, UTS’ North Line, Outer Loop and Inner Loop serviced the majority of student housing locations on and off Grounds and ran from 7:30 a.m. to 2 a.m. With the onset of the pandemic, however, the buses began stopping services at 8 p.m. Even with the return of in person classes, the buses continued to end service at 8 p.m., leaving students few options for safe transportation home at night.
Prior to the introduction of these new options, students largely used Safe Ride, a free ride option that is offered upon request from 12 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. seven days a week. The service struggles to meet demand, and students often face long wait times, which leads to many students giving up, causing a “no show” for the van driver.
SafeRide experiences an extremely high volume of ride requests on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays between 12 a.m. and 2 a.m. — late Friday evenings and early hours of Saturdays see an average of 58.7 Safe Ride requests between 12 a.m. and 1 a.m., while late Saturday and early hours of Sundays see an average of 1.8 Safe Rides requests between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m.
Holly Sims, chief of cabinet for Student Council and third-year Batten student, has been involved in conversations with UTS through her role on Student Council — as chief of cabinet, Sims coordinates meetings to alleviate some of students’ most pressing concerns, and coordinated meetings with UTS after complaints and public comment about lack of bus routes on McCormick Rd. In these meetings, Sims and UTS officials discussed safety concerns and recommendations.
Sims said the large number of Safe Ride requests leaves many students without a cost-friendly mode of transportation at night.
“You can't get service to everyone all the time because there are so few options, there are so few drivers during the busiest time and you have minimal predictable wait times,” Sims said.
Second-year College student Sarah Raza uses Safe Ride regularly, but noted the dangerous situation students may be placed in when they have to wait for long periods of time.
“There are plenty of times when I've had to wait between half an hour to almost two hours for a ride,” Raza said in an email statement to The Cavalier Daily. “I think we need more drivers hired, as it can be unsafe for students to wait that long for a ride after midnight.”
Night Pilot was started to alleviate some of these concerns, and offers bus transportation from 10 p.m. to 12 a.m. seven days a week. The system serves Clemons Library, first year dorms, McCormick Road, Central Grounds, Hereford Residential College, Jefferson Park Avenue, the University Bookstore and the International Residence College. Its new bus route is designed to help students travel safely from Central Grounds and various libraries to dorms after regular bus routes stop at 8 p.m.
“What [UTS] is hoping with the Night Pilot is that they can get more people who are just trying to get to libraries and back on a rainy or cold night and not have those people use Safe Ride so that that traffic is being diverted by the time that the late night shuttles are rolling around,” Sims said.
Sims did express concern that the Night Pilot does not service residence areas where upperclassmen live, however.
“What about Faulkner, Lambeth — obviously those people are also going to libraries,” Sims said. “That would be a concern that I've heard expressed … from SRs in those areas.”
The UTS OnDemand is a free shuttle service that operates from 10 p.m. to 12 a.m. seven days a week and provides transportation upon student request. Students can use the TransLoc app to request a ride and choose from 50 designated ‘hubs’ — ranging from the Dairy Market, Scott Stadium and Barracks Shopping Center — for drop off and pick up. UTS OnDemand focuses on the areas not serviced by Night Pilot and does not follow a specified route. The service will use vans similar to SafeRide, but will begin service sooner in the night.
Second-year College student Justin Zhang said he has found OnDemand easy to use and efficient. So far, Zhang has used the service many times to travel home from Central Grounds to Lambeth.
“There's one right in the Lambeth lot, which is perfect for me,” Zhang said. “Even the bus stop is further away.”
In her conversations with UTS, Sims said she learned that the bus routes removed during COVID-19 have not returned due to staffing shortages.
“I think what students would want the most is to have that North Line, Outer Loop and Inner Loop service return in full from 7:30 a.m. to 2 a.m. because that was just really easy to have,” Sims said. “All of the routes that you use during the day would be the same as the ones that you use at night.”
Raza – who lives in Brown Residential College – also expressed a desire to return to the previous bus routes and schedule.
“I would like to have the full range of being able to go wherever the regular bus goes after 10 p.m.,” Raza said.
Routes and wait times for UTS bus lines can be checked on the TransLoc app.
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