Nicole Bishop Class Pass Effectiveness May 9 2005p. 1Cost Effectiveness of the Class PassNicole BishopAbstract The AC Transit Class Pass at UC Berkeley, an unlimited access pass to the AlamedaCounty public transportation system, is provided to students of the University for a mandatoryfee. This study examines the costs and benefits of the Class Pass system. Student focus groupsand data from student surveys were used to determine student attitudes and modal choices.Emissions statistics, average operating costs, and parking data for cars and buses, as well as thechange in amount and route of buses since the institution of the Class Pass are also used inquantifying the benefit to students, AC Transit, the community, and the environment. Resultsshow that the monetary cost to the student body as a whole is greater than the average studentbenefit, but because of varied student attitudes, an increase in the mandatory fee could affectwillingness to pay. An overall benefit to AC Transit as a result of guaranteed income is shown,but is somewhat diminished by illegal Class Pass sales. The benefits to the environment andcommunity are generally positive because of decreases in car use with no significant increases innumber of buses, resulting in fewer emissions. Implications of the study indicate that the ClassPass may be more beneficial if it was an optional fee, where only users would pay for theservice.Nicole Bishop Class Pass Effectiveness May 9 2005p. 2IntroductionThe AC Transit Class Pass was instituted for UC Berkeley students in 1999 (Heagerty andTanphanich 2003). It is one of many unlimited access programs being implemented byuniversities across the country (Brown et. al 2001), providing students with the unlimited use ofthe buses in Alameda County as part of student fees. Currently, for a mandatory fee of $37.20per semester ($34.20 in 2001 and 2002) the student receives a Class Pass sticker for their IDcard. The system was instituted as a service to the students and because of the success of similarsystems at other schools. One of the principle reasons many schools establish such systems is toprovide incentive for using the public transportation system and thereby minimize the use ofpersonal transportation by students in urban areas without the infrastructure to support a largequantity of vehicles (Brown et. al 2001). While generally hailed as a success because 88% of thestudents voting in the referendum (30.9% of students) voted to implement the pass in 2001(http://bearfacts.berkeley.edu/election_results.html), the costs and benefits of this fixed fee havenot been studied. This study examines the transportation outcomes of the Class Pass todetermine whether or not this fee is benefiting the groups that it is affecting, including UCBerkeley students, AC Transit, the surrounding community, and the environment.The validity of unlimited access systems has been studied at UCLA (Brown et. al 2001), andthe success of systems has been studied at many universities (Brown et. al 2003, Panayotova2000, Daggett and Gutkowski 2002, EPA 2003, Transportation Research Board 2003, Garder2002). These studies have revealed a positive impact for these universities and communities.UCLA’s program was considered a success based on the change in commuter ridership, with adecrease in commuting by 20% and an increase in student bus use by 56%. Parking demand wasalso taken into account, with the waiting list decreasing by over 1000 students (Brown et. al2003). Non-commute rides, costs and benefits to Blue Bus (UCLA’s transit system), and thebenefits to the community were also taken into account in the study.Because each campus and transportation system is unique, whether or not the unlimitedaccess system is efficient for a particular school has to be studied individually. The extent of thetransportation system, other modal options (i.e. biking, driving, or walking), layout of the school,and attitude of the students can all affect the success of an individual program. While surveys ofwhether or not the students are generally satisfied with the Class Pass system have beenimplemented, there has been no study assessing whether the system is achieving decreasedNicole Bishop Class Pass Effectiveness May 9 2005p. 3driving to campus or reducing the cost of attending college, which have been used as criteria forassessing unlimited access programs (Brown et. al 2001), or how the surrounding communityand environment are affected. These are questions that will be examined in my analysis of thecost-effectiveness of the Class Pass. In analyzing the costs and benefits of the Class Pass, I expect that there will be somesimilarities and differences between Berkeley and other schools, such as UCLA. Some possibledifferences can come from the attitudes of students, the infrastructure of the transportationsystem, or the topography of the campuses. The preferences at UCLA were not looked at, butthe steep incline at UC Berkeley increases the probability of students using the bus for shortdistances. I expect Berkeley to be similar to UCLA in costs and benefits to AC Transit, andbenefits to the community because these would not be highly different as a result of thetopographical differences. On the other hand, I expect to see a difference in the commuter andnon-commuter rides because of the campus layout and community. I expect that there are fewercommuters in Berkeley and that more people now take the bus for short distances in place ofwalking or biking because of the incline of our campus.After instituting the pass, increased ridership by students prompted AC Transit to expand andimprove its system (Cole 1999), however a large portion of the rides are non-commuter (survey2001). Many students would choose the cheaper and more environmentally friendly options ofwalking or riding bikes to substitute the bus system if the Class Pass was not a mandatory fee(survey 1997). Rodriguez and Joo (2004) suggest that development of transit systems needs totake into account modal choices of the users, finding that the infrastructure influences whichmode is preferred. They found that preferences for biking and walking decrease in sloped areas,which could explain the increased use of the AC transit system when it became a mandatory flatfee. However, an increase in use of the bus without a corresponding decrease in car use wouldrender the program less successful. If the service is being underutilized or is being
View Full Document
Unlocking...