After more than 30 years relying on only Capital Area Transit System to provide vehicles for the LSU bus system, University officials and Student Government are seeking to end that relationship.
Gary Graham, director of the Office of Parking, Traffic and Transportation, said the University seeks to hire a national company to replace CATS.
“We’re in the process now with Student Government to bring in a consultant to evaluate the whole mass transit system to see if we can get a better service outside CATS,” Graham said.
He said the plan to privatize is “uncharted territory.”
Graham said the obligation to customers was more important than maintaining the contract with CATS.
Colorado Robertson, SG president, said he has been in contact with other companies, which he said promised better service for a lower cost.
The consultant’s fee will come from funds left over from Coca-Cola’s donation this past year of $100,000.
“We’ve allocated $40,000 … to bring in a consultant,” Robertson said. “We have a proposal from a consultant, and [Finance and Auxiliary Services and the Office of Parking, Traffic and Transportation] are negotiating the contract right now.”
Robertson said the consultant will involve the entire student body through focus groups and surveys.
He said there will be benefits to privatizing the bus system, including more control over routes, schedules and “when the drivers can and cannot take breaks.” There will also be a full-time manager on campus to oversee the bus system, according to Robertson.
The move to privatize the bus system comes after a nearly $1 million increase between the proposed contract cost to contract and the actual cost.
“They were running at $58 [an hour to operate], and they were projecting a verbal increase to $62,” Robertson said on June 16. “After meeting with them … they said it would be $84 an hour to operate.”
John Denman, CEO of CATS, could not be reached for comment.
Recent increases in the price of fuel and the loss of federal money caused CATS to increase its price.
The original verbal proposal from CATS would have cost $2.3 million for the bus system to operate 38,900 hours. The actual contract cost after the increase per hour equalled $3.2 million.
To offset the difference, the University was forced to cut 10,000 hours of service from the bus system.
The new contract, awaiting approval from acting Chancellor William Jenkins and LSU System President John Lombardi, will cost the University $2.4 million.
Despite the cuts, the Office of Parking, Traffic and Transportation must use $40,000 of reserve funds to cover the remaining cost, Graham said.
The new proposed contract will cut the number of buses from 21 to 12 for the fall and spring semester routes.
Graham said the least-used routes were cut first and “after that, we just tried to ease the crunch across the board.”
Graham called the current bus situation “regrettable.”
“I wish we had been able to work this out,” Graham said. “But it’s giving us an opportunity to start from scratch and evaluate the whole system.”
—-Contact Katie Kennedy at [email protected]