Mobility of NDSU Students: Transit Survey Results

Transit services are important to the North Dakota State University community. A transit survey was developed in fall 2002 to determine students specific transportation needs and to explore options and opportunities in meeting those needs. The Small Urban and Rural Transit Center (SURTC), a research program within the Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute (UGPTI), and NDSU student government developed the transit survey.

Student Government President James Burgum e-mailed a letter asking NDSU students to participate in the survey. A direct link to the survey was included in the e-mail. The survey was designed to investigate a number of issues regarding campus transit use, user perceptions and user opinions about the quality of services provided by Metropolitan Area Transit (MAT) and the Campus Circulator. The results of this survey are intended to help plan the transit services provided on and to the university campus.

This preliminary report is a snapshot of survey results. The report is divided into six sections: 1) student demographics, 2) movement demands of campus students, 3) student perceptions of MAT services, 4) student perceptions of parking issues, 5) demand for the NDSU Circulator, and 6) campus accommodations for transit. SURTC received responses from 1,665 students who completed the 35-question survey. Their information provides insight into many transit issues including behavioral response to current land use and transit services. This will be important to monitor changes in student perceptions in response to changes in transit services and design through future surveys. A more detailed report will be published this spring.

Of the1,665 students who responded, 941 or 56.5 percent were female, and 724 or 43.5 percent were male. In checking registration records, campus enrollment is 43.4 percent female and 56.6 percent male. The percentage of women who responded to this survey is proportionately higher than the percentage of women attending NDSU.

It is not possible with an electronic on-line survey to ensure equal participation from all student classifications. Nevertheless, there was distribution among all class levels from freshman through graduate level (Table 1). The junior class had the lowest proportion of representation, and graduate students and freshman responders were slightly greater than actual class proportions.

Table 1. Survey Response Distribution Compared to Actual Class Distribution

The most disproportionate representation for students who completed the survey was between full-time and part-time students. Ninety-five percent of the respondents were full-time students, while only 79.6 percent of the student body has full-time status. Just over 98 percent of the freshmen and sophomores who completed the survey were full-time students. This may indicate full-time students are more interested in transit than their part-time counterparts. There could be a number of reasons for this including financial, scheduling, convenience and saving time.

Student's employment status almost always has an impact on their response to personal environmental issues. About one-fourth of the survey respondents were not employed (Figure 1). Almost half of the respondents work off-campus, while one-fourth work on-campus. Just over 26 percent of NDSU students are not employed. There are some noted differences in the behavior of employed and not-employed students that will be discussed throughout this report.

A further breakdown shows that on campus there is an even split between male and female employees, however, off-campus more women than men work. There is no survey information available to explain this difference.

Whether students live on or off-campus was another explored variable. The survey respondents were divided, two-thirds living off-campus and one-third living on campus. According to the Campus Life office, there is dorm capacity for about 29 percent of students. It was also determined that 59 percent of students living off campus considered their address temporary. This may imply that a large percentage of the students living off campus are from outside the Fargo-Moorhead area.

We received a good distribution across many categories. The class distribution was within six percentage points and the students living on and off-campus was within four percentage points. We were unable to get off-campus employment numbers for that comparison.

Movement Demands of Campus Students

This section will show movement patterns of NDSU students, to, from and around campus. The survey results in this section tell how far students live from campus, where they are coming from, what time period they spend on campus, how they most often travel to campus, how many have access to motor vehicles, what determines their mode of travel and whether their mode changes in the winter. This information is helpful in determining what services can be offered that will fit into the normal movement activity of the student body.

Students live at various distances from campus (Figure 3). When dividing the respondents by gender, more male students live within a mile of campus than female. This may explain why a higher proportion of women responded to the survey than men. The overall response showed about 52.6 percent lived within two miles of campus.

Even though about 75 percent of students are employed, almost 92 percent of the responding students are coming to campus from home, 4.72 percent are coming from work and the rest (3.5 percent) from other places. Evidently a large percentage of students work either at night or on days when they don't have class. For students arriving for afternoon classes, just over 12 percent are coming from work

The majority of responding students are on campus from 8 a.m. till noon (Figure 5). The 10 a.m. until noon time period is when the highest concentration of students is on campus. The 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. time period relates to normal classroom schedules, which are during the normal work day of 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

NDSU students are very mobile, with 93.5 percent having access to motor vehicles (Figure 6). According to Independent Insurance Agents of America and College Parents of America, nearly 70 percent of college students have either their own or use of their parents' car at school. This means NDSU is well above the national average.

The majority of students go to and from campus either once (two one-way trips) or twice a day (four one-way trips) (Figure 7). Twice as many upper-class students make two trips a day than lower-class students. Whether they work on- or off-campus makes very little difference in trip frequency.

Students who live on-campus were asked why they most often leave campus. Visiting family and friends, and general shopping are the two most common reasons (Figure 8). Not employed students who work on-campus most often leave to go shopping, while the students employed off-campus most often leave to go to work.

By far the majority of students either drive or walk to campus, probably in large numbers each day. About 10 percent of students ride a bicycle from time to time. Only 5.7 percent of students said they most often use the MAT bus when traveling to campus (Figure 9). When respondents were divided between living on and off-campus, only 6.34 percent and 5.46 percent respectively indicated they use MAT services.

The survey asked the respondents to indicate how important the following factors were in deciding on their mode of travel: convenience, cost of vehicle, cost of parking, weather, parking availability and time element. Students clearly indicated that time and convenience are the two most important factors (Figure 10). The cost of parking and the cost of vehicles are the least important; however, the availability of parking has some influence on the decision-making process. The important factor here is that more than 90 percent of the respondents indicated that convenience is important in deciding what mode of transportation to use.

If a student has a car, he or she can travel any time of the year regardless of the outdoor temperature. However, if a student walks or rides a bicycle, the weather may influence the choice of mode. Results showed that 23.3 percent of the students choose their mode of travel because of weather (Figure 11). Considering only 12.8 percent of the student respondents indicated they use the bus, there appears to be a window of opportunity to address the transit needs of more students. It may not be realistic for transit to expect to be able to capture all of these students, but it does seem there is room for growth in ridership.

Students were asked how far is too far to walk to campus in differing temperatures. In above freezing temperatures, the response was mixed between 1/4 mile to one mile (Figure 12). In below freezing temperatures, the majority said 1/4 mile or less. North Dakota winters can be harsh, with 20- to 50-below-zero wind chills. These conditions make it difficult for anyone, even appropriately dressed for the cold, to walk or stand outside for an extended period walking to school or waiting for a bus.

The survey has shown us some interesting facts about NDSU student movement activities. This data reveals 47.4 percent of students travel more than two miles to campus; almost 92 percent travel from their homes and they are on campus from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.; 93.4 percent have access to vehicles; almost 45 percent of students make only one trip daily to campus and a majority prefer to drive. Convenience and time have a major influence in the decision on what mode of travel and approximately 23 percent change their mode of travel in the winter. The large percentage of students who have access to vehicles on campus is probably a negative for transit even though parking is a problem. Also, the large supply of parking slots and parking permits on campus encourage the use of the automobile and discourage the use of transit.