7A - TESTING THE HYPOTHESIS PART 1

Improving the RTS system

·      Opportunity:

I think there is an opportunity on improving the RTS system schedule, many buses stop working at 6:00 p.m., when at that time there is still people who are in classes or simply want to stay on campus studying or doing homework. I believe the bus for the students at UF is important, because even if you have a car you have to take the bus due to the lack of parking spaces

The who: Students at the University of Florida who depend on the bus

The what: unable to transport home after 6:00 p.m.

The why: because many buses stop working at that time

·      Testing the who: not just students without a car have this need, I think the majority of the students at the University of Florida have taken the bus. And not only students, there are workers who also rely on the bus 

·      Testing the what:  Although there are buses that work after 6pm, there are very few. And many bus routes after 6pm stop working. That's why I think that extending the schedule for at least two more hours would be convenient for students and workers at the university

·      Testing the why: Why many buses stop working after 6pm? Well, I think it is because of the cost. It will be expensive to extend the schedule of the buses.

·      Interviews

#1. In this interview, a girl who live 4 blocks from campus and have a scooter told me that sometimes she has to take the bus even if she has a scooter because at 11:00am it is hard to find parking space for her scooter, she usually spends the whole day at campus until 7:30pm, and instead of taking bus (because there isn’t a bus at that time that takes her to the complex she lives) she has to walk 25 minutes, and she said sometimes she feels scared to walk alone at that time.

#2. In this interview, I spoke with a boy, he lives near the Archer road and has a car, but because there is not enough parking at the university, he has to take the bus daily for his classes. He says that many times he has had to take an Uber after his club meetings because there isn’t a bus that takes him home by that time.

#3. This time, I interviewed a girl who lives across campus, she neither a car nor a scooter. She said she does not need the bus to go to her classes, but she uses when she goes out to Downtown, she complained about the Later Gator and also about the app. With this interview, I realized that there are more things that the RTS system can improve.

#4. This time, I interviewed a girl, she didn’t specify where she lived but she told me it was like 20 minutes away from campus. She said that the bus she takes to her home, does work after 6 pm but she has to wait for an hour to get on the bus after 6pm

#5. In this last interview, I spoke with a guy who takes the bus daily, he said that buses work perfectly from 8am until 6pm, and buses go through his complex every 15-30 min. But after that hour there is only one bus that passes every 55 minutes. He said it is very inconvenient and that he prefers to walk many times (30 min walking), but that the last couple of days due to the cold weather and sometimes the rain he have preferred to wait for the bus.

·      The interviews gave me some new perspective, for example from interview #1, I could tell that the lack of buses after 6pm is not only inconvenient but it can also be dangerous for those people who walk alone back home, for others, as in interview #2 it can be an extra cost since he lives away from campus his only solution is to take an Uber if there are no buses available, with interview #3 I realized that the RTS system has other things that can improve (like the app, to have more accurate times through which the bus passes), and from interview #5 I could see that the improvement of these schedules would not be only for the convenience of those who take the bus but also to help them because when it rains raining it may not be easy for student or worker to get home walking (Gainesville being a place where it rains frequently).