P-Rides student workers displaced

With the launch of TigerTransit this Monday came the end of the P-Rides Express shuttle and the employment of the students who helped run it.

The P-Rides Express shuttle service, which provided on-demand transportation to students, faculty and staff between the hours of 5 p.m. and 2 a.m., has been replaced by the TigerTransit on-demand service.

Public Safety student general manager Anthony Rossettie ’09 said that an estimated 20 to 50 students were eliminated from Public Safety’s payroll as a result of the shift to TigerTransit, which will employ non-student drivers.

The P-Rides driver schedule for 2008 shows 27 students were signed up for P-Rides shifts this fall.

Director of Transportation and Parking Services Kim Jackson explained that because of “economies of scale,” the new system will save the University money, since it incorporates the on-demand service into part of the larger shuttle system.

Assistant Vice President for University Services Paul Breitman said that students formerly employed by P-Rides will be offered jobs in other positions on campus at “comparable” pay rates.

“No student staff will be displaced, and all have been offered employment on campus at Frist or other locations,” Breitman said.

He acknowledged that not many students have taken up the employment offer so far. “Only a few students have requested employment, and others have stayed with public safety in other capacities,” Breitman said.

Many former P-Rides employees said that their work at P-Rides was probably more interesting than other on-campus jobs.

Ben Oliver ’10, who drove the P-Rides shuttle on Fridays during the fall, said he enjoyed interacting with passengers in his van.

“Frist will almost certainly be more dull than P-Rides, since one of my favorite things about driving the van was meeting the passengers and talking with people I hadn’t met before,” he explained.

Public Safety scheduling manager Spencer Walle ’10 likewise enjoyed the social nature of the job. “When you’re driving P-Rides, you meet more graduate students than you will meet during your entire time at Princeton,” Walle said.

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Walle added that the P-Rides jobs were also more desirable because shifts were flexible. “It’s really easy to move things around to adapt to your schedule,” Walle said. “If a commitment came up, I could find replacements.”

Some P-Rides employees expressed dissatisfaction with the decision to terminate the service, while others took a more stoic approach.

“In all honesty, I am 100 percent against it,” Walle said, noting that student employees were only informed of the decision “about a week and a half” before the last P-Rides shift.

Oliver, meanwhile, said that he initially organized a petition against the decision to end P-Rides, but “once I heard we would still have jobs, I stopped contesting the decision.”

Oliver added that he realizes “the new system will be better for the riders.”

“With more vans and a more sophisticated call system, the predictably long waits for P-Rides pickups will almost certainly get shorter, and more people will be served by the system,” he explained.

Jackson emphasized the advantages of the new TigerTransit on-demand service over the P-Rides service, including more seats, longer hours and routes from Princeton Junction train station.

“The on-demand vans provide more vehicles, three vans and higher passenger capacity, as each van holds 14 passengers,” she explained. “We can provide longer service hours, covering multiple areas on campus simultaneously.”

Jackson said that, unlike the P-Rides service, the TigerTransit service will run during the summer. The service will also offer rides back from the Princeton Junction train station from 12:58 a.m., when the last Dinky shuttle departs on weekdays, until 3 a.m.

The new service will be timelier than P-Rides, Jackson said, explaining that with only one van, riders would sometimes have to suffer long waits before they were picked up.

“If the van was at the Friend Center, and you were at the Dinky, you would have to wait 15 minutes for the van to get to the Dinky,” Jackson said, adding that since the new system has three vans, “you may only have to wait a few minutes.”

The TigerTransit service runs for a shorter time period each night than P-Rides did, according to an e-mail from Associate Dean of Undergraduate Students Thomas Dunne. The new service begins at 9 p.m. instead of 5 p.m. but is available until 3 a.m. instead of 2 a.m.

USG president Josh Weinstein ’09 and GSG facilities committee chair Jeff Dwoskin GS said that they had worked with the administration to bring about the switch to the new system and believed it would better serve students.

“I felt strongly that the P-Rides Express service was not meeting student demand,” Dwoskin said, adding that “there was only one van in operation, which caused waiting times of up to 45 minutes when students called for a ride.”