New York University’s Office of Campus Transportation today announced that on Monday, March 6 it would begin electronic collection of data relating to ridership on NYU buses and trolleys. The program will be piloted on the South and 80 bus routes to test the equipment.
The University, working with its transportation contractor, Gray Line Inc., has installed devices on all the buses that will be used on those two routes. Members of the University community entering the bus to ride will slide their ID cards through the devices. The devices will not record information about individual riders, only count the number of riders.
Jules Martin, who as assistant vice president for protection services oversees campus transportation, said, “The introduction of this technology is part of our ongoing effort to make our transportation system as effective and professional as possible.
“The transportation system is an important fact of life for the members of our NYU community. But we have always said that in operating we want to maintain a balance between the needs of the NYU community and the concerns of our neighbors, many of whom have expressed strong opposition to the University running this system at all. Having a verifiable set of data about ridership will be a major help in our discussions both internal and with the local community about how to fine-tune the system.
“The technology we have chosen which we will pilot on two of the four routes for 60 days before expanding to all our buses will, I believe, give us good data while proving to be of little or no inconvenience to our riders.”
Earlier this week, the University announced that it had added two new compressed natural gas buses to its fleet, bringing to three the number of diesel vehicles replaced by alternative fuel vehicles. The University also announced the replacement of all large coach-style buses on its routes with smaller vehicles.