Sustainable Campus Transportation through Transit Partnership and Transportation Demand Management: A Case Study from the University of Florida

Abstract

The University of Florida has established a long-term, sustainable partnership with the local transit system in Gainesville, Florida. This partnership provides over $5.2 million of annual funding to enhance transit services used by students at the university. Ridership on the system has grown by 284 percent between 1995 and 2003. These ridership gains were made possible through a comprehensive campus transportation demand management (TDM) system, which seeks to reduce automobile use in favor of more sustainable modes. The campus TDM system includes policies such as parking restriction, parking pricing, transit service enhancements, and unlimited-access transit.

Effect of Habit and Car Access on Student Behavior Using Cars for Traveling to Campus

“…Campus is the right environment to experiment and to implement transport policy changes, as well as having authority with respect to the management of transportation facilities in the campus [3]. In addition, travel pattern and an awareness of the impact of transport on the environment experienced by students during their study will affect their travel behavior in the future [2].…”

Challenges of Promoting Sustainable Mobility on University Campuses: The Case of Eastern Mediterranean University

“…Transportation issues are, therefore, one of the biggest challenges within university campuses and their surrounding communities [22]. For these reasons, numerous universities have started to plan a shift in their transportation sectors away from the use of private automobiles and towards the use of sustainable modes of transportation [18,22,23].…”

“…Promoting sustainable modes of transportation for university campuses has many environmental, social, and economic benefits, but the educational benefits of this effort are most profound since internally they have a duty to educate and foster the next generation of decision makers [19,23] and externally they have a duty to spread the most progressive knowledge into general usage. In view of this influential position, they should act as a laboratory for testing new ideas and strategies related to active modes of transportation [9,12,13,21].…”

“…TDM strategies have numerous benefits such as diminished consumption of energy resources, preservation of natural resources and the environment, efficient use of land, decreased traffic accidents and congestion, a decline in pollution, increased transport options, and overall improvement in livability and social equity [28,29]. TDM strategies must also provide a balance between travel choice and the motivation to decrease trips using private cars [23]. The following sections describe several TDM strategies commonly used on university campuses: parking management and utilization, public transportation, carpooling and vanpooling, encouraging the use of bicycles, and providing a pedestrian-friendly campus [22,30].…”

Untitled

“…De esta manera, aumentar el precio del aparcamiento ha sido una estrategia identificada por la University of Idaho para desincentivar el uso del coche (Delmelle y Delmelle, 2012). Adaptar los precios y restringir el aparcamiento también se ha aplicado en la Universidad de Florida, aunque en paralelo han realizado una inversión importante en el transporte público que ha permitido aumentar su uso en casi un 300% entre 1995 y 2003 (Bond y Steiner, 2006). Una combinación lógica, puesto que únicamente una restricción en el aparcamiento afectaría principalmente a los estudiantes con un menor poder adquisitivo y a aquellos que residen en localidades con una mala conectividad en transporte público entre su lugar de residencia y el centro universitario.…”