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University of Massachusetts Amherst
SARIS - Student Affairs Research, Information and Systems

Transportation Survey (F00-B)

Executive Summary: Off-campus students travel to campus an average of 4.9 days per week, and have an average commute of 7.7 miles. Three-quarters of commuters come from the four towns of Amherst, Sunderland, Northampton and Hadley. Most students (88%) said that they own a car or motorcycle. More than half of the students who come to campus on an average day come by motor vehicle, either as driver or passenger. When asked for the primary reason why they do not use the free bus, students were most likely to say that the bus did not run either where or when they needed to go.

On Tuesday, September 26, 2000, Project Pulse conducted a survey for Transit Services in order to find out how off-campus undergraduate students commute to campus. Pulse interviewers attempted to contact 914 off-campus students who had been randomly selected by computer from the University’s database. Interviewers successfully contacted 556 of these students, and 484 (87.0%) agreed to be interviewed. The response rate for the survey was 52.9%, and the sampling error is plus or minus approximately five percentage points. The final disposition of the sample is presented in Table 1 and a demographic summary of the respondents is presented in Table 2.

*Excludes 186 sampled students with unobtainable phone numbers.

First, respondents were asked how many days they travel to campus in a typical seven-day week. Responses ranged from a minimum of one to a maximum of seven, with a mean of 4.9 days per week. Figure 1 details responses to this question.

Figure 1. How many days per week do you typically travel to campus?

Most of the respondents (59.2%, n=290) reported that they commute from Amherst. Sunderland was the home base for 8.2% (n=40) of respondents, followed by Northampton (5.3%, n=26) and Hadley (2.9%, n=14). No other community yielded as much as 2.5% of the respondents. The average commute was estimated to be 7.7 miles. Five individuals (1.0% of the respondents) reported commutes of more than 40 miles.

Most respondents (87.6%, n=423) said that they own a car or motorcycle. One-half of respondents (50.3%, n=243) reported that they own a bicycle.

The next set of questions asked respondents to report how they had commuted to campus on each day of the previous week. Figure 2 summarizes the responses to that question. Respondent behavior on the days Monday through Thursday was extremely similar, so Figure 2 uses the mean response for those days. The two weekend days were also extremely similar to each other and have been averaged. Friday was somewhat anomalous and has been graphed separately.

Figure 2. Commuting by day of the week

Half of the respondents (51.8%) either drove or were passengers in a motor vehicle on Monday through Thursday. Slightly over another one-quarter (28.8%) took the free bus, whereas 6.0% did not travel to campus in a typical day. Essentially all of the students who said that they combined methods used a car or the bus as one component of their journey. (See Figure 3 for a breakdown of all combinations that were listed by respondents to the open-ended question.) This means that over 90% of students either drove or took the bus to reach campus. On Fridays and weekends smaller proportions of students came to campus, but their methods of getting to campus followed the same pattern.

Figure 3. Travel strategies of students who combined methods.

Respondents who do not use the bus were asked to specify the most important reason that they do not use the bus to commute to campus. The most common response, given by 76 respondents, was that the bus was not available, in the sense that it did not run close enough to where the student would need to be dropped off or picked up. On the other hand, 22 students said that they did not use the bus because they live too close to campus to need it. Many students had concerns about timing and scheduling. Students said that the buses ran too infrequently (n=30), that the bus schedules do not work with their personal or class schedules (n=26), that the bus took too long (n=25), and that the bus schedule is not regular or reliable enough (n=20). Fourteen said that they did not have or could not get a bus schedule. Seventy-one students gave the fact that they “have a car” or that the car is more convenient as their reason for not using the bus. Another set of themes have to do with general dissatisfaction with the buses: 10 said the buses were too crowded, 4 were concerned about poor service, noise and smells, 2 mentioned bus accidents and 2 the shortage of drivers. Other responses included having already paid for campus parking, being too lazy to bother with the bus, a dislike of waiting, and wanting the exercise of walking or biking.

All of the respondents were asked to suggest ways that the University could encourage more people to use the bus, carpool, or bike to campus. The great bulk of student responses dealt with the bus system. The most common response (n=192) was that, in some way, there needed to be more and more frequent buses. Some students focused on the need for more “more buses” or “more frequent buses,” while others mentioned the need for “more drivers.” Many respondents saw other areas needing improvement. Forty-five students said the buses were unreliable or needed to run on time. Thirty-seven students mentioned the need for more and more convenient bus stops and the need to enlarge the service area. Thirty students said that the buses were too crowded. Nine students suggested that more buses are needed at night, and two mentioned the need for more buses on the weekends. A few suggested using more of the available buses to get students to campus, even if this meant decreasing the number of shuttles around campus (n=3). Another set of responses dealt with the need for more and better advertising of the free bus system (n=41), easier access to bus schedules and more readable schedules (n=20), and the idea that bus use and bus schedules should be stressed as part of the New Students Program (n=5). Three students suggested gifts or incentives for bus use.

A few respondents focused on ways to decrease the number of cars on campus, suggesting that the University limit the number of cars per household, or refuse to let first-year students have cars on campus, or ban cars for on-campus students.

On the subject of carpools, respondents suggested reduced fees for carpool parking (n=13), the need for more and better carpool parking (n=12), and the need for more off-campus parking with shuttles to campus (n=4).

Suggestions for improving bicycle use were to keep the bike paths clean and clear, to extend bike paths through campus, and to provide more bike racks at more locations around campus.

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-- Meg Kluge