Education

Students and SURTC Help Gauge Satisfaction with Fargo's Buses

With the help of student bus riders, SURTC will help Fargo-Moorhead's Metropolitan Area Transit gauge the satisfaction of its riders.

"We want to see how people generally feel about the bus system," says Jim Gilmour, director of planning and development for the City of Fargo. "Most of the feedback we receive now is limited to when things go wrong." Gilmour says MAT has conducted surveys before, "but we really want to zero in on the people who are regularly riding the buses."

SURTC director Jill Hough explains that students will be administering a survey to riders. "We want the survey to be short so that it's not intrusive, but we want to ask the important questions," says Hough.

On Nov. 15, 16 and 19, students will ride all routes in Fargo-Moorhead from dawn until well past dusk. Hough says they'll be asking questions about how frequently riders ride the bus, how friendly they think the drivers are, how easy it is to get information about bus routes, the cleanliness of buses, quality of buses and other issues.

"We're using students to administer the study because this can be a learning experience for them too," Hough says. "We also hope to involve students in the process of compiling and analyzing the data we collect."

The analysis should be complete sometime later this winter. "If there are areas of concern, we'll investigate those in more detail and make all the corrections we can," Gilmour says. In addition, the city will be developing a five-year transit plan. "The information from this survey will be useful in that process as well," Gilmour says.

Student to Design Mobility Centers in SURTC-Sponsored Contest

NDSU students in architecture and landscape architecture will have an opportunity to express their visions for mobility through a SURTC-sponsored design contest.

Students in the fourth year Advanced Urban Design Studio will participate in a contest to design a mobility center for a small city, town or urban setting. "One of the focuses of this class is the concept of transit-oriented development. Everything we're doing this semester revolves around transportation issues," says Cindy Urness, an instructor for the course.

"As future urban planners and architects, these students are a key audience for us," notes SURTC director Jill Hough. "We want to help make them knowledgeable about mobility and transportation issues and get them started early in incorporating those issues into their concepts and thought-processes."

Urness says students will be challenged to develop a center that encompasses multiple modes of transit including paratransit, taxi service, fixed route service and long-distance transit such as intercity bus, airlines or train. "A mobility center is where any of these modes come together," she says.

"Similarly, we want those students to think about what that center will look like in a small city like Jamestown, a larger city like Fargo or a suburban area near a large metropolitan area. The linkages that occur among modes of transit may be different in each of those settings," Urness says. "We want students to look at mobility at all those scales. For a center to meet the demands of all those size situations, students might look at concepts of modular design."

The students will also be required to incorporate principles of universal design into their concepts. "We want them to think about mobility on that level as well," Urness says. Universal design is design that accommodates the widest range of potential users, to the benefit of all users.

The design contest will be formally announced to students in mid-November with judging by a panel of SURTC-appointed experts to take place in early December. Depending on how many other instructors involve their sections of the course in the contest, up to 30 students could participate.

SURTC Continues to Offer Transit Course

Students from across the United States will be able to participate in an "Introduction to Public Transportation" course coordinated by SURTC this spring.

The class features transit case studies, online discussions and presentations on research projects. Lectures are recorded and streamed for student accessibility. Featured speakers for the course have included nationally recognized experts such as William Millar, president of American Public Transportation Association, and Barbara Sisson, Associate Administrator of the Federal Transit Administration.

The course is offered on the NDSU campus and linked to students in other locations via the Transportation Learning Network. This interactive video network with archived presentations and interactive features allows each student to learn at their own pace and accommodate differing holiday breaks and schedules.

Instructor for the course is Jim Miller, a retired faculty member from Pennsylvania State University. He has more than 30 years of experience in public transportation research planning and management and is a leader in developing transportation systems for rural areas.

This year, the course will be open to a limited number of transit managers and staff from throughout the SURTC region. Participants can watch the class for free or register through NDSU to take the class for credit. "The class would provide a good background for transit professionals," Miller says. "A broader understanding of the overall transit industry puts them in a more knowledgeable position to manage their own operations."

For more information, contact Sue Hendrickson at (701)231-7766 or susan.hendrickson@ndsu.edu.

SURTC Geographic Region