Universal Student U-PASS Advisory Board Winter Quarter Meeting 2 March 2012 Present: Bill Dow, Chair, ASUW Representative Melanie Mayock, Vice-Chair, GPSS Representative Becky Edmonds, GPSS Representative Miles Fernandez, ASUW Representative Sean Wilson, ASUW Representative Sarah Round, ASUW Representative Josh Kavanagh, Adviser, Transportation Services Alicia Halberg, Advisory Board staff, Transportation Services Michelle Rhoads, Transportation Services By Phone: Celeste Gilman, Transportation Services Absent: Conor McLean, ASUW Representative Rene Singleton, Adviser, Student Life TBA, GPSS Representative TBA, ASUW Representative 1. Chair Bill Dow called the meeting to order a. The Advisory Board passed the last meeting’s minutes. b. Vice-Chair Melanie Mayock asked that Colin Morgan-Cross and Adrian Servetnick be removed from the list of members on the agenda. They will be replaced by next quarter. 2. Ridership information a. Transportation Services provided a new sheet including numbers from UWEO, which were left off by mistake in the previous handout about this data. b. Josh Kavanagh reiterated that these numbers need to be taken with “not just a grain of salt, but a teaspoon of salt” as the quarterly contract number does not exist. i. TS has taken the modeled number for the year and backed into a seasonal estimate for the quarter. 1. This is “an estimate of an estimate” – which introduces a certain amount of error. c. As the year goes on, TS expects to see a pattern of convergence where the modeled number of rides and the actual number of rides meet. i. But again, this is still a model, and will likely not be 100% spot-on. ii. The transit contract is essentially brokering the sales risk. 1. If the UW were taking more rides than contracted, for example, the contract specified that TS would not be entertaining a motion from any transit agencies asking the UW to pay for those rides. d. TS estimated to the best of their ability using the best data they had available. i. Currently, they have no reason to believe that the model is substantially off, though they do have reason to watch it closely.
e. It is estimated that an ORCA software update will occur in the summer, July at the earliest, which will allow TS to break the ridership data up at the group level. This will allow them to break up faculty and staff from students. f. Question (Bill Dow): What if there is no convergence, will there be any wiggle room when TS goes to negotiate the faculty and staff program this summer, despite there being a firewall between the two programs? i. If the findings were truly egregious and something was so out-of-whack that it was likely to sour the relationship between students and the transit agencies, then they might be willing to have a conversation. ii. The concessions that the transit agencies made were so significant that it would have to be a very large change in order for them to need to come back and listen to students. iii. At the end of the two year student contract period, there is no official mechanism for addressing any error from the previous contract, though it will indirectly color the negotiations. It will certainly have some bearing on what the new contract looks like, and it will be talked about within the context of those new negotiations. g. Question (Sean Wilson): What impact will this have on the students’ ability to keep the price of the U-PASS low in the next contact in negotiations? i. Josh Kavanagh said he is optimistic when looking at the numbers. He said to keep in mind that this isn’t a full year’s worth of data, and that TS is still unable to disaggregate faculty and staff. ii. If it is true that the model overstated ridership compared to the actual totals, then it would be likely that we would offset a meaningful portion of the potential fare increases in the future. h. Question (Sean Wilson): At the last meeting, it had been discussed that the two transit agencies that were the furthest off, Community and Sound Transit, were used more heavily by faculty and staff in the past. Is that true? i. Celeste Gilman said that in years prior, the assumption was more heavily weighted towards students. This was when both the faculty/staff and student programs were lumped into one. ii. When TS went through the last contact, attempting to cut costs for students as much as possible, they looked closely at the survey and population data and found that faculty and staff were taking more trips. Therefore, they changed the earlier ratio. iii. Again, these are all estimates, and TS will not know more until the ORCA system has group-level reporting functionality. i. Question (Josh Kavanagh): Celeste, when you seasonalized the estimate of the estimate, did you apply one seasonalization uniformly across the riders? i. Celeste did apply seasonality to the ridership and tried to make it as representative of the population as a whole. 1. Students have much greater seasonality than faculty and staff members. 2. Seasonality is still also an estimate based off of U-PASS sales. Once TS has group-level data it can see what is actually happening with seasonality. ii. This number could be off for any transit agency where there is an imbalance between faculty/staff and student ridership and usage. j. Question (Melanie Mayock): Someone could look at this data and say that we’re receiving a bad deal from the transit agencies, that we’re taking fewer rides than we are paying for—how do we counter that?
i. TS will put together some information about how U-PASS is a good deal for students and the University. 1. The information TS will provide will contain at least the following: a. How many students now have increased access to transit because of the U-PASS program b. The amount of savings it provides students. c. The increase in institutional subsidy because of the program d. Transit agencies customizing the price per ride for students e. How many cars would be back on the road without the program f. The negative impacts cyclists and pedestrians would have without the program g. Pounds of CO2 saved by U-PASS k. Comment (Michelle Rhoads): Sometimes when there’s a new program or a significant change, it takes a while for things to normalize. Over time, usage increases after participants realize, “I’m already paying for it, I might as well start using it.” 3. U-PASS Scholarship a. Members of the Advisory Board are reluctant about this. Josh Kavanagh continues to think it is a good idea, and would welcome the Advisory Board’s comments. b. The largest concerns is about marketing i. There are a limited amount of scholarships and potentially the only people finding out about it are those who are complaining; this is not an equitable system. 1. Celeste Gilman said that there are very few complaints so far which have indicated the U-PASS being both a great financial burden as well as not being able to utilize the service. a. Complaints are an indicator of scale, not the guidepost for how the aid would be given. c. There’s potential for it to take away from benefiting everyone, as a whole. Becky Edmonds said that it still substantively seems like an exemption to her. i. The Advisory Board just passed strong language expressing that they are not interested in exemptions. d. The Office of Financial Aid gives out scholarships and grants that cover all components of tuition and related fees. i. If the U-PASS is trying to establish itself as the same as the SAF and technology fees, then it should not get some sort of special treatment from the Office of Financial Aid. ii. Question (Michelle Rhoads): What if this scholarship was coming from a different source, such as from the transit agencies? 1. Creating this sort of distance between the University and the scholarship would be more preferable. e. Comment (Sean Wilson): A student-levied-fee go back towards funding individual students isn’t what students voted for. f. All members agreed on their hesitations. i. Josh Kavanagh does not want to press the Advisory Board on something that they aren’t interested in.
ii. Transportation Services will continue to monitor the tenor of student complaints and if it feels that it is more viable in the future, it will draw up a more complete proposal to present to the board. iii. The Advisory Board tabled the scholarship issue until the transit contract is revisited, approximately one year from now. 4. Changing the fee name a. Changing the fee name would only impact the name of the fee on tuition statements, it would not change the name of the Advisory Board or the program. b. Changing the name requires an action item from the UW Board of Regents and an addendum to the MOU. c. The Advisory Board had previously discussed a variety of names: i. Transportation Fee, CTR Fee, TMP Fee. 1. The Advisory Board previously leaned towards the wonkier acronyms because they demonstrate how the program is complying with regulations. a. Melanie Mayock said that wonkier names might make students feel like it is more similar to their other mandatory fees, which it is. 2. Josh Kavanagh is leaning toward CTR or TMP Fee. a. Celeste Gilman said that TMP is better than CTR because CTR is a state law focused specifically toward employee programs, therefore it could cause some confusion. i. She favors TMP fee because the U-PASS is very much a part of the University’s comprehensive transportation management program. d. Question (Sarah Round): What is the message we’re trying to convey, and how is that not being currently communicated? i. Melanie Mayock said that she wants something that is easy for students to understand—to make it clear to students what this is for, and more accepting of it. 1. Sean Wilson agreed that keeping the name simple is important. ii. Josh Kavanagh thinks the purpose of the name change is to distance the fee from the concept of a fee for service. U-PASS has a very distinct service associated with it, rather than a broadly-based community assessment. iii. Becky Edmonds thinks that a lot of it is PR: it’s not just paying for a bus pass. e. There may be a limitation on how many characters long the fee name can be. f. Question (Sarah Round): Which names are used by our peer institutions with similar fees? i. Alicia Halberg said that Transportation Fee and Access Fee were the most common names. g. Question (Melanie Mayock): What do you think we get from “TMP Fee”? i. Nobody expects something specific, in terms of service, from a TMP Fee. They may expect something from a transportation fee, and they absolutely expect something from a U-PASS fee. h. The Advisory Board discussed and brainstormed other ideas i. CRC – Congestion Reduction Charge ii. Advisory Board members don’t want anything too “cutesy” as it may create backlash.
i. j.
Josh Kavanagh said he would follow-up on when the timeline for making this change with the Board of Regents should occur. Advisory Board members will discuss the fee through Google Docs and ask around to informally survey what others think of the different options.
5. Loose-ends and logistics a. A grievance filed by UAW on behalf of graduate student employees is moving forward with arbitration next week. i. Both Charles Kennedy and Josh Kavanagh have been called in relation to this. ii. It will likely boil down to a question of who pays the fee: do student employees pay it? Or does the University pay it? 1. Essentially, these students are asking for an opt-out. If this optout moves forward in any way, then it may unwind the universal program for graduate students, bumping the fees up to $132. a. Josh Kavanagh does not think this is likely to happen. b. Meetings next quarter will continue to be on Fridays at 3:30 p.m. in Gerberding 142. Alicia Halberg will send out more information. c. Some Advisory Board members have requested to have more materials in advance of the meetings so they have time to generate questions or comments. i. Alicia Halberg and Bill Dow have mocked up a schedule of how these processes will work in the future, helping both TS and the Advisory Board to get everything they would like in a timely manner. 1. Friday – Advisory Board meeting 2. Following Tuesday – minutes sent out, draft of the next week’s agenda sent out. 3. Thursday – loose deadline for any submissions for the next week’s agenda. 4. Following Wednesday – Formal agenda and any necessary documents/attachments sent out to the group with a meeting reminder 5. Friday – Advisory Board meeting
Autumn 2011 UW‐Seattle branch‐level ridership data March 1, 2012 Actual Ridership Autumn Contract ridership estimates 2011 (Seattle and UWEO Autumn 2011 Branches)
Community Transit Everett Transit King County Metro King County Ferry District Kitsap Transit Pierce Transit Sound Transit
211,270 1,256 2,632,656 1,497 8,149 7,917 321,183 3,183,928
138,568 5,699 3,313,605 1,342 16,922 40,866 377,800 3,894,802
Difference ‐72,702 4,443 680,949 ‐155 8,773 32,949 56,617 710,874
Greater than contract estimate Less than contract estimate
Notes: 1) Contract ridership has been seasonally adjusted.
2) Contract ridership was established during summer 2011 using best available data prior to ORCA ridership being available.
3) Transit agencies shared mutual risk using ridership estimates and stability (locking in for two‐years) and favorable pricing was the goal.
4) While projected ridership exceeds actual ridership, favorable pricing terms mean that the contract price is still significantly below the retail cost of the actual trips taken.
5) The funds we pay help the transit agencies provide services for our students, staff, and faculty.
