On Aug. 8, Transportation will roll out its brand new “clean” fleet of 29 buses.
“[N.C. State will be] the first transit fleet in North Carolina to totally transfer over,” Slade McCalip, assistant director for planning and transit operations with Transportation, said.
The clean diesel technology will reduce harmful emissions by 90 percent with no black soot being emitted, according to McCalip.
McCalip said other new features include automatic passenger counters, which allow for more precise operation planning and route management.
Currently NCSU uses the transit provider Veolia, but starting next month First Transit will be taking the reins of the Wolfline bus system. And though the new fleet of buses will hit the road soon, the service will be the same as the spring 2007 semester.
According to Ronnie Wright, assistant director of finance, the Transportation department wanted to expand their service to include a reverse Wolflink Shuttle. However, because the Board of Trustees approved a student transit fee increase of $10 instead of the requested $20 in fall 2006 “students will not get any additional service,” Wright said.
The new contract brings with it “a 21 percent increase” in price, Director of Transportation Tom Kendig said. The total price of the new contract for the 2007-2008 year, based on budget data from Transportation, will be $3,897,453.
The new contract will be in place initially for five years and after that the decision lies with Transportation to either as McClip said “dump them and get someone else” or extend the contract for another five years.
Each of the 29 new buses cost $350,000, according to McCalip. This cost will be spread out over the life of the contract. The First Transit contract also contains features the previous contract with Veolia did not guarantee. For example, if the bus is late too much or if there are too many complaints, NCSU will not have to pay First Transit for that billing period and the issues will be corrected, McCalip said.
Looking to the future, Transportation will be requesting a $16 increase in the transit fee in order to add the desired additional service. The proposed additional service would include a reverse Wolflink Shuttle, correcting the ridership issue at Wolf Village, and tripper buses, which would provide 500 hours of service to meet peak demand.
Both additions would total to 4,900 additional hours of service per year and require the purchase of two additional buses.
First Transit also provides transit service for Emory, Georgia Tech, Georgia Southern and SUNY Buffalo.
