Tufts' weekend shuttle service between the Medford/Somerville campus and Harvard and Porter Squares, which began running two weeks ago, has been plagued by overcrowding that has resulted in scheduling irregularities and inconvenience to riders.
Joseph's Transportation on Nov. 5 began operating two shuttles that stop at the Mayer Campus Center and Porter and Harvard Squares every half hour between 10 a.m. and 2 a.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.
The shuttle was created following the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's (MBTA) announcement of its plans to shut down the Red Line between Alewife and Harvard for repairs from this November to March 2012.
"The Operations Division, Director of Facilities Services Bob Burns and Support Services Manager Sheila Chisholm worked with the Dean of Students Office to get this new shuttle underway once we heard about the closure of the Red Line beyond Harvard Square," Vice President for Operations Dick Reynolds told the Daily in an email.
The shuttle service has been transporting up to 40 students every half hour, according to Kevin Gibbs, a shuttle operator.
Overcrowding on the shuttles has forced some students to wait for nearly an hour for the next shuttle. Overcrowding results in shuttles leaving prematurely, which skews the schedule for the entire day, Gibbs added.
"It gets crowded every once in a while, and when it's crowded, I have to leave the station. I can't wait," he said.
The inaccuracy in the schedule, according to Gibbs, often leads to confusion on the part of students about when the shuttle will actually arrive.
"Because we can't stay at Harvard Square, we're told to come back to campus, so the schedule isn't always accurate," Gibbs said.
Sophomore Kathleen Mathieu missed the shuttle one day when it left before its scheduled time.
"I was there a couple of minutes before the shuttle was supposed to leave and it was already gone," she said. "I ended up taking the Joey to Davis and the MBTA shuttle to Harvard and I ended up getting there before the Tufts shuttle."
The ridership count last weekend reached 1,100 on Saturday and 500 on Sunday, according to Reynolds. On the first weekend of its operation, over 1,200 students used the shuttle on Saturday and 540 rode the bus on Sunday.
Gibbs said that each shuttle can only transport 40 students at a time.
He urged students waiting at Porter Square seeking to travel to campus to take the shuttle even if it is headed in the opposite direction to Harvard Square in order to secure a spot.
"If we get full at Harvard, we have to go right by you," he said.
The original announcement regarding the new shuttle schedule said that the bus would stop in Davis. This was incorrect; the shuttle actually bypasses Davis on its way from campus to Porter and Harvard Squares, which has been the source of confusion for some students, according to Gibbs.
"We cannot stop in Davis, because the other shuttle, the Joey, runs from campus to Davis Square," he said.
Sophomore Andrew Kreshtool was under the impression that the shuttle would stop in Davis when he got on it one Saturday morning on his way to receive a quick haircut.
"The Joey was five minutes away, so I thought I would jump on the Harvard shuttle," he said. "It ended up not stopping [in Davis] so I ended up taking it all the way into Harvard ... It kind of delayed my Saturday plans."
Students seeking to travel from Davis Square to Alewife or to Porter or Harvard Squares can utilize extra buses the MBTA has provided as a result of the Red Line weekend shutdown between those stops, Gibbs explained.
Given the shuttle has only been in place for two weekends, it may be too soon to gauge its success, Reynolds noted.
"It's too soon to have gotten much in the way of response, but the number of students using the service indicates that it's been appreciated," he said.
Reynolds said that the Operations Division is paying for the new shuttle service, but that exact costs of the program are still unknown.
"The shuttle is being funded by the Operations Division from our annual budget; final costs won't be known until we see how often we finally need to meet the demand," he said.
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Amelie Hecht contributed reporting to this article.
