For our EGRS 451 capstone project, our group was tasked with conducting a sustainability study on the LCAT transportation system that shuttles students/faculty to and from Metzgar Fields Sports Complex. The LCAT is a free, safe and reliable bus service that connects Lafayette’s main campus with the Downtown/ Williams Arts Campus, college athletic fields, and student parking areas. Each of these three locations has its own respective shuttle-bus and for the purpose of this study we will solely be focusing on the bus that travels to the college athletic fields (Metzgar). Metzgar Fields Sports Complex is located 3.5 miles from Lafayette’s main campus, which creates transportation problems for our student-athletes. To combat these problems the college invested in the shuttle service that we now know as “The LCAT”, but it has become evident that students do not use the shuttle regularly and prefer to drive themselves to Metzgar. The university has recognized this problem and they are currently searching for an affordable alternative that will increase utilization of the LCAT.
Our Team
Lafayette has recognized that students do not regularly use the LCAT and have started searching for a sustainable, affordable option to implement in the future. After communicating with Geoff Labe, Assistant Vice President of Lafayette’s Finance & Administration, we discovered that the LCAT transportation system is primarily run by the college’s Public Safety division. That being said, we will work mainly with the Public Safety team but will also be engaged with the college’s athletic department and finance department. After reaching out to many Lafayette faculty, we have assembled a team to help us find a solution. Some of the faculty we have on board are: Jeff Troxell (Director of Public Safety), Sandra Rogers (Assistant Director of Public Safety), Geoff Labe (Assistant Vice President of Finance & Administration) and Andrew Foster (Senior Associate Athletic Director). We plan to work with these resourceful individuals closely as we conduct our study. This team will give us insight on the social, political, technical and economic contexts that are crucial to finding a sustainable, affordable and practical solution.
Our Goal
The goal of this study is to provide Lafayette College with two effective, potential solutions to better the LCAT shuttle. First, our group plans to develop an alternative, more efficient route for the shuttle to take to and from Metzgar. This also includes changing pick-up/ drop-off locations. Second, we plan to revamp the marketing of the system itself. Enhanced marketing of the LCAT shuttle will not only increase ridership, it will increase attendance at athletic events being played at Metzgar. These recommendations will be discussed further in the technical context section (Page 14). We would like to note that we chose to develop two independent solutions in hopes that they both can be adopted by the college. Through our study we will provide Lafayette College with an effective and sustainable transportation solution. Finally, we will provide the background information for a future group to build upon in an effort to implement a more efficient and user-friendly LCAT shuttle.
Challenges
When it comes to making improvements to the LCAT, the majority of the challenges will fall into the political and economic contexts. The political challenges stem from policies that are in place that could restrict certain improvements being made to the system. This will be further analyzed in the political context section. The economic challenges stem from the risk that inherently comes with change, if there is a chance that the improvements we recommend do not bring the benefits we had anticipated, we could be wasting the schools money. This will be further discussed in the economic context section. Alternatively, when we consider how these improvements will be adopted by the students, this leads to social challenges, which will be further analyzed in the social context section.