Memo
Date: 9/4/2013
To: Ms. Kim, Instructor: ENGL301, Section 587/588
CC:
From: Yiting Xu
Subject: Efficiencies for the on-campus bus service
Purpose
The purpose of my proposal is to require the Department of Transportation Services in Texas A&M University to refit the inner structure of the Millennium buses used now, and change the schedule of off-campus routes after 7p.m. from one bus per hour to one bus per half an hour, for solving the overcrowding problem of the on-campus bus service.
Summary
On September 1st, 1988, the Department of Transportation Services (which was called The Department of Parking & Transit Services) was officially created in Texas A&M University. In 1990, there were fifteen routes and 59 buses in total. 46 buses were utilized by 11 off-campus routes, while 4 on-campus routes utilized the remaining ones. In 1999, the purchase of 22 new Nova buses was approved. Two years later, the purchase of an additional 24 buses was approved. In the year 2008, 25 new Millennium buses replaced 19 old Thomas buses.
Nowadays, there are sixteen routes with 6 on-campus routes and 10 off-campus routes. The department also provides night and weekend shuttle service as well as Gameday shuttles. The Transit area transports totally over 150,000 passengers per week on average. The buses we use now are the Millennium buses, which contain 43 coaches in one bus, and the maximum carrying capacity of the Millennium buses is about 120 people.
As the main trip mode of the Aggies, on-campus bus service takes a large responsibility of students’ transportation on campus. However, some students are not satisfied with on-campus bus service, and the most serious problem is the overcrowding on the buses during some high traffic times, such as classes times and the times after 7p.m.
I propose to refit the inner structure of the Millennium buses we use now. Specifically, I suggest decreasing the number of the coaches in the buses to widen the space for standing passengers. I propose to change the interval of the off-campus routes after 7p.m. from one hour to thirty minutes.
To refit the inner structure of the buses, the university has to pay $2,664,000 for refitting the buses. In addition, if the department approves to add one off-campus route per half an hour after 7p.m., it would increase the cost $3,900 per day.
Introduction
With the 16 routes, which almost cover the whole area of College Station and Bryan, the professional drivers, the accurate timetable and the even the new GPS system on the mobile app, Texas A&M University Transportation Service is relied by Aggies deeply. As the data provided by the department, The Transit area transports totally over 150,000 passengers per week on average. According to the Customers Survey taken from 2009 to 2012, the percentages of “satisfied” and “very satisfied” in “Bus routes”, “Ease in understanding route maps”, “Maintenance, cleanliness and upkeep of buses” and “Courtesy and friendliness of bus drivers” increased steadily; however, the percentages of “Time you wait before a bus appears” and “Hours of operation” decreased obviously.
According to the data provided by the department, there are usually 70 to 80 passengers need to get on the bus in the morning, especially from 7:30-7:50. The times around other class times, such like 9.15, 10.20 in the morning and 1 in the afternoon, the number of passengers on one on-campus bus is also approximated 70. The largest data always appears in the evening even over 80, since the schedule of the off-campus buses changes from one bus per 5 minutes to one bus per one hour after 7 in the evening. In contrast, the numbers of the passengers in other times are always around 30or 40, sometimes are less than 20. Alice, a sophomore in Electricity Engineering major, said, “I have to run fast from the engineering building to the bus station every evening after my 7o’clock class, or I have to wait for another an hour here.”
Nevertheless, the number of the