To see a video of the new buses and one of the bus drivers, click here. Tiger Trails, the University’s new bus system, will begin full service for students, faculty and staff today after taking over the University’s bus system from the Capital Area Transit System on Aug. 1.The new bus system features additional routes to the Garden District, downtown and Perkins/Stanford and a real-time bus locator, which passengers can access on their cell phones, said Gary Graham, Office of Parking, Traffic and Transportation director.”What it shows on the phone is where a bus is at a particular time and what its next stop is,” Graham said.Graham said eventually monitors will be installed at bus stops. Bus riders can currently track their bus at http://lsu.transloc.com.New buses are also in order for Tiger Trails, and temporary buses are currently in use until the new buses ordered for the system arrive. The new, smaller buses will arrive in late September and the larger buses by next spring.  “There’s going to be a year of transition until we get things really up and running,” Graham said.Since the service started, Graham said Tiger Trails hasn’t had any major problems, and any problems the system had were quickly corrected by First Transit, the company providing service for Tiger Trails.”The company is very responsive to any issues that have come up,” Graham said. “There was a driver on the downtown route who misunderstood the route. It was actually brought up by a rider … We went back to the reports, figured out what the driver was doing, and it was corrected later that day.”First Transit held a job fair, and an experienced team selected qualified drivers for Tiger Trails, said Catherine Utt, First Transit general manager.”We turned away a lot of people simply because they weren’t made out to be part of First Transit,” Utt said. “We try to make sure that everybody who’s coming in has the First Transit way of thinking — courteous, safe and has lots of experience.” The new drivers must have at least five years of commercial bus experience and go through extensive training with First Transit trainers, Utt said.”We also made sure that everybody knew exactly why First Transit was coming in, why we were taking this over from CATS and any specific complaints we had gotten,” Utt said. “They are aware that [certain behavior] is not going to work when they are driving.”Riders call in regularly saying the new system is “a complete change from CATS,” Utt said.”I had a woman call about one of our drivers saying she wanted to stay on the bus for a couple extra loops because the driver was so friendly,” Utt said. “We like to reinforce that with [the drivers] and let them know that we are hearing about all of the good things people are saying, so it doesn’t go unnoticed.”Despite no longer serving the University, CATS worked out a deal with the University and will continue to allow University students, faculty and staff to ride its buses for free. The University will also allow the public to ride Tiger Trails for free in exchange. CATS used the University’s ridership and mileage to help support its federal funding. The company worried it would lose a substantial amount of its federal funding when the University — which once accounted for up to 25 percent of CATS’ system — switched to First Transit.”We weren’t out to penalize CATS — we just wanted good service, and they didn’t do it,” Graham said. “[The deal] is a win-win situation.”Tiger Trails bus driver Donald Ray Smith said students are elated about the new system, and any problems the system may have in its first week will be fixed quickly.”Once everybody learns what direction they’re going and we get more familiar with the campus, it’s going to be great,” Smith said.Tiger Trails is a result of a year-long student-driven initiative calling for better bus service. The University has a five-year $16 million contract with First Transit, and the student transportation fee increased from $44 to $68 to help cover the cost of Tiger Trails.Utt stressed that the system First Transit is providing with Tiger Trails is different from what CATS offered.”It’s a completely new system, we’re a completely new company and we’re completely different from CATS,” Utt said. “This is a new system for the students, designed by the students, and we’re here to make sure it serves the students as best as we possibly can.”- – – -Contact Brianna Paciorka at [email protected]