In recent years, more than 10 percent of the students, faculty, and staff who arrive at UCLA each day have traveled on the Santa Monica Blue Bus. Since last fall, chances are that number has gone up. Thanks to research by urban planning student Daniel Baldwin Hess and his adviser, Professor Donald C. Shoup, passengers can board that bus free by simply swiping a UCLA ID card through the fare box. The bus company tallies the fares, and UCLA pays later. A survey of U.S. colleges and universities turned up 35 programs that allowed students to ride free on existing public transportation.
University students are a group that's willing to ride.
In providing free transit for students, universities were motivated by overflowing parking lots, the need to turn parking lots into building sites for expanding campuses, and the lobbying of environmentally conscious students. Before Professor Shoup and Daniel presented their data to UCLA's Parking Services department, the research had passed muster as a conference paper for a national meeting of the prestigious Transportation Research Board. Today, his CV lists about a dozen conference presentations and a few journal articles. Still more articles are in the pipeline, Daniel says. It takes a little while to build up your research background so you have the right things to say for journal articles.