Many students at Chapman University are familiar with the scenario: they glance at the map on the Passio GO! app and begin making their way to the shuttle stop. As they are waiting, they see the shuttle pull up to the stop, but at the last moment, the driver flips on the “Not In Service” sign, extending the student’s day another 15 to 30 minutes as they are forced to wait for the next shuttle. 

“It’s super annoying,” said Biola Fatusin, a resident of Chapman Grand Apartments. “If the shuttle sees a huge line, and they’re not in service, I feel like they should at least pick those people up, and (after dropping them off), go on their break or find another way to get a shuttle nearby sent to campus or something. It’s unfair that we have to sit and wait there when we have other classes to go to, (or) if we just want to go home and come back.”

Sometimes, an all-too-trusting student might even check the schedule posted on the app and head to the stop, only to find the shuttle has already driven away. Now, they are left with the choice to wait for the next shuttle and be late to their next class or club meeting, or they have to pay for an Uber to take them to campus.

According to Fatusin, it was often difficult to catch the shuttles in the morning at the beginning of the school year due to the long lines. The junior biology major said the experience of using the shuttle during the day, specifically in the morning, has greatly improved since then. Now, it’s more typical for more than one shuttle to show up to Chapman Grand, sometimes back-to-back, at 9 a.m. — one of the busier times to use the service.

Fatusin noted that, although there is a 15 to 20-minute wait around 5 p.m. when many residents begin lining up at the Schmid Gate stop, she herself has waited between 30 and 45 minutes at night. Fatusin recalled one night when she was waiting for the shuttle after finishing an evening lecture and lab that lasted almost four hours.

“I got out of (my) lab and (the Passio GO! app) said (the shuttle) was coming at a certain time, but it didn’t,” Fatusin said. “It was actually far, far away. So, that’s just kind of irritating — having to wait in the dark at night for the shuttle. (I) had no other option, no other way to get home besides Uber, but no one wants to pay for that.”

That being said, Fatusin has been forced to pay for a means of transportation to campus before: she said if she is attending a club meeting at 7 p.m. and she misses the 6:30 p.m. shuttle, she generally opts to take an Uber to campus. However, Fatusin added that the decision to do so is in part fueled by a fear of waiting for the shuttle alone at night — especially if it’s taking a long time to arrive.

Panther Village resident Pionnah Gregorio, a junior majoring in mathematics and civil engineering, said that although she has not run into many problems with the shuttle service during the daytime, there have been moments in the afternoon or evening when she had to wait at least 30 minutes for the next shuttle or the shuttle would leave right before it was scheduled to leave. 

Gregorio recalled an instance when she was waiting at the Schmid Gate stop at night with another female student, who expressed relief that someone else was waiting with her in the dark. Gregorio said that while she wasn’t fazed with waiting an extra three to four minutes for the next shuttle to come, she learned how the extra wait time at night was affecting the female student.

However, Fatusin said issues with Chapman’s shuttle system are not just exclusive to the evenings, but a day-to-day complication. She tries to work around these problems, though, by checking the estimated times of arrivals on the Passio GO! app and constantly peering out of her apartment window, since it’s directly above the stop. 

Some mornings — especially around 9:20 a.m. — the line sometimes stretches back to the stop sign, Fatusin added, since many students are trying to catch the 9:35 a.m. shuttle. Even if a student catches the shuttle, Fatusin said there’s no guarantee they’ll make it to class on time due to the vehicle’s longer route. She hopes to see Chapman implement at least two more shuttles in the future as well as provide accurate data in regard to each vehicle’s whereabouts and times of operation.

“Sometimes, (the university) sends shuttles, and nobody’s (at the stop),” Fatusin said. “But a lot of the time, they need more shuttles somewhere else. Like (for the) two shuttles going to Chapman Grand at one time, one could be going to campus already, because sometimes there’s a huge line on campus waiting to go back home. So, I feel like (Chapman) still needs to work out (the) kinks in where shuttles need to be at what time (and) how many people need to get on.”

Mindy Pomper Johnson, the mother of a transfer junior student who is living at Chapman Grand this year, attested she has heard from her son and other parents that the shuttle schedule is unreliable. Johnson told The Panther her son has difficulty getting to campus to eat dinner, since he does not have a car and thus relies on the shuttle service.

According to Johnson, there were also times when her son had to take an Uber to get to campus and back, especially when he attended on-campus events that ended after the shuttle service was done running that day. She said her son typically uses Uber once a week during the weekdays and once or twice over the weekends.

Carla Franklin, another Chapman parent, has a first-year daughter who was originally supposed to live in the North Morlan residence hall but was permanently moved to Panther Village after the hall was experiencing issues with its plumbing infrastructure. Franklin told The Panther her daughter is on a meal plan but is not using it as much as she expected since she makes and eats her breakfast at Panther Village. While she tries to eat her other meals on-campus, this does not always work out since the Randall Dining Commons hours sometimes do not correspond with her schedule. 

Franklin said her daughter has started using Uber Eats, since there have been a couple instances where she was in her room but lacked the accessibility or motivation to go back to campus to eat at a dining hall.

Sheryl Boyd, the assistant director of Chapman’s Transportation Services, told The Panther the shuttles have been running every weekend on the posted schedule.

“If someone needs a ride late in the evenings or on weekends after the shuttle has stopped running, we have (a) Safe Ride service for that,” Boyd said. “During the first three weeks, we actually ran four dedicated Safe Ride vans just for Panther Village and Chapman Grand after the shuttles stopped running for the evening. We average about four to six safe rides on the weekends from Chapman Grand and Panther Village — not nearly enough demand to increase the shuttle hours.”

Boyd said in the eight years that the shuttle service has been running at Chapman University, there is always an adjustment period for students during the first few weeks of school, during which they figure out when the shuttle schedule corresponds with their personal schedules. She also said that, for the first couple of weeks of the semester, there were people at the shuttle stops who were available to help riders learn the schedule and answer any questions they may have had.

“We also have a robust shuttle tracking system, which allows us to review, playback, verify and monitor location, arrival and departure times, as well as occupancy,” Boyd wrote in an email to The Panther. “This data allows us to make adjustments in real time. So, if a shuttle departs a location full, but there are still additional riders, another shuttle can be sent and arrive quickly. This is how we can continually address fluctuating demand during peak times.”

Accompanying the shuttle service is the Passio GO! app, which is used by riders to see the number of shuttles currently running, track their location and estimate when the shuttles will arrive at the next stop. Fatusin said she has found the app useful since she can more readily tell when the shuttles will be coming.

“I feel like (the university) should tell us more about the features (that) the app has,” Fatusin said. “My friends figured out some of the features, like the estimated time of arrival, by accident. I never knew you could tell when the shuttle was coming, what shuttles were coming and who the drivers (were).”

Fatusin also said the app was confusing to learn since a tutorial is not provided, so students have to figure out how to use the app on their own.

Comparatively, Gregorio downloaded the app onto her phone in August but deleted it a month later, instead opting to use a shuttle schedule that her resident advisor sent out. Gregorio does not plan to use the app in the future.

“I just hope that there is a way for the shuttles to be consistent all the time (so) students don’t have to wait alone or worry about being late to school or waiting in the dark,” Gregorio said.