Introduction

The Student Affairs Committee (SAC) was given the following charge:

Committee Input

The SAC concluded that the coordination between the Rutgers buses and the New Jersey Transit trains is acceptable when the Rutgers buses are running on their normal schedule during the school year.  However, we did not think that the coordination was acceptable when the Rutgers buses were not running on their normal schedule.  This occurs on the weekends, during final exams, breaks (Thanksgiving, Winter, Spring), and the summer.  A decrease of the average time in between buses, on the non-normal bus schedules, would allow a higher amount of ease in coordinating the NJ Transit trains with the Rutgers bus system during these time periods.

The normal schedule for the Rutgers buses has a bus arriving at the train station for the Livingston or Cook/Douglass campus on average every 10 – 14 minutes through the "L", "EE", or "F" route.  A bus to the Busch campus will come on average every 10 minutes to the College Avenue Student Center, which is about three blocks from the train station.  There are two bus routes that go from the College Avenue Student Center to Busch, the "A" and the "H".

The schedule for the buses on the weekends has a bus arriving at the train station for the Cook/Douglass campus on average every 20 minutes and a bus to the Livingston/Busch campuses every 40 minutes.  On the weekends and breaks the "L" and the "A" routes service the Livingston, Busch, and College Avenue campuses.

The exam schedule has all of the bus routes are running, unlike during the breaks and weekends.  The average time increases as compared to the normal schedule.  The "GG" route, which goes from Livingston to Cook/Douglass, and the "G" route which goes from Busch to Cook/Douglass both end at 7:45 PM during exams.  Students who took either of these routes would have to take two buses to get back to their campus when having an 8:00 PM final.

All times are approximate averages that are stated on the New Brunswick Parking and Transportation webpage. (http://parktran.rutgers.edu/bus/timetable.html) The times for the normal schedule are from 7:00 AM to 8:15 PM Monday through Friday.  The weekend times are from approximately 8:00 AM to 2:00 AM.  The bus schedule used during the breaks (Thanksgiving, Winter, and Spring) is the same as the weekend bus schedule.  The summer bus routes run from 7:00 AM to approximately 5:30 PM Monday through Friday.
 

Bus Route	Destination	Normal Schedule	Weekends	Exams	Summer	Breaks
EE	Cook/Douglass	10	20	20	40	40
L	Livingston	12	40	15	40	40
F	Cook/Douglass	14	N/A	15	N/A	N/A
A	Busch	10	40	18	40	40

A NJ Transit train is scheduled to come approximately every 30 minutes on average during the week from 7:00 AM to 11:00 PM at night, and every 53 minutes on the weekend during this timer period.  The departing times were taken from the NJ Transit website for the Northeast Corridor Line. (http://atisweb.njtransit.com/cgi-bin/railtt_page.pl?Section=sft)
 

Departing Time	Time In Between	Departing Time	Time In Between		Departing Time	Time In Between	Departing Time	Time In Between
4:14:00	1:07:00	1:07 PM	0:32:00		5:53 AM	0:47:00	2:40 PM	1:00:00
5:21 AM	0:24:00	1:39 PM	0:19:00		6:40 AM	1:00:00	3:40 PM	1:00:00
5:45 AM	0:08:00	1:58 PM	0:36:00		7:40 AM	1:00:00	4:40 PM	1:00:00
5:53 AM	0:15:00	2:34 PM	0:24:00		8:40 AM	1:00:00	5:40 PM	1:00:00
6:08 AM	0:19:00	2:58 PM	0:39:00		9:40 AM	0:45:00	6:40 PM	1:00:00
6:27 AM	0:06:00	3:37 PM	0:21:00		10:25 AM	0:19:00	7:40 PM	1:00:00
6:33 AM	0:16:00	3:58 PM	0:32:00		10:44 AM	0:39:00	8:40 PM	1:25:00
6:49 AM	0:11:00	4:30 PM	0:32:00		11:23 AM	0:17:00	10:05 PM	1:06:00
7:00 AM	0:15:00	5:02 PM	0:25:00		11:40 AM	0:45:00	11:11 PM	1:06:00
7:15 AM	0:31:00	5:27 PM	0:17:00		12:25 PM	0:18:00	12:17 AM	1:05:00
7:46 AM	0:35:00	5:44 PM	0:20:00		12:43 PM	0:57:00	1:22 AM	1:05:00
8:21 AM	0:20:00	6:04 PM	0:33:00		1:40 PM	1:00:00
8:41 AM	0:05:00	6:37 PM	0:24:00
8:46 AM	0:31:00	7:01 PM	0:29:00
9:17 AM	0:06:00	7:30 PM	0:33:00
9:23 AM	0:33:00	8:03 PM	0:42:00
9:56 AM	0:28:00	8:45 PM	0:40:00
10:24 AM	0:33:00	9:25 PM	0:48:00
10:57 AM	0:30:00	10:13 PM	0:58:00
11:27 AM	0:29:00	11:11 PM	1:06:00
11:56 AM	0:32:00	12:17 PM	1:06:00
12:28 PM	0:39:00	1:22 AM
Average	7 am - 11:11 PM		0:29:25		7:40 AM - 11:11 PM			0:52:28

Committee Recommendations

Two other sources of information that might be helpful are a report written in November of 1999 by the Parking and Transportation Committee and the Parking and Transportation Student Advisory Committee.  A copy of the report has been submitted to the Senate office along with this report.  The Parking and Transportation Student Advisory Committee can be contacted through Bob Spears, rspear@rci.rutgers.edu .

A member of the SAC brought to our attention that an unknown amount of students at University of Medical and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) also use the Rutgers bus system.  The SAC suggests that the current financial relationship between Rutgers and UMDNJ regarding the Rutgers bus system should be researched.  In addition, it would be useful to know how many UMDNJ students do use the Rutgers buses.  We do not suggest asking students to present their ID when boarding the bus because this would present substantial delays.

We also found that the "GG" and "G" routes are a concern to students on the Cook, Douglass, Livingston, and Busch campuses.  These routes are very long and have longer waiting times from 7:00 AM to 8:00 PM than any of the other routes. Though the average waiting time is 17 minutes from 7:00 AM to 12:15 PM students have reported having to wait as much as 45 minutes for a bus to come.

Respectfully submitted,
Rutgers University Senate Student Affairs Committee