Syracuse buses go paperless

Parking and Transit Services did away with printed schedules now has all their schedules online.

Students and faculty looking for campus bus schedules need not look further than the palms of their hands.

This semester, Syracuse University Parking and Transit Services decided to go paperless, doing away with 13,000 printed bus schedules.

“This was huge for us,” said manager Scot Vanderpool in an email. The schedules can now be found on the SU Parking and Transit Service’s website in PDF form, giving students and faculty the option to print the schedule themselves or pull it up on their mobile phones.

Initially, Vanderpool said the department had the idea to make the schedules recyclable, but they took it a step further.

“We feel that most students now have this technology and that has allowed us to make the change,” he said.

Though, he said the adjustment was not easy.

“Faculty, staff and students are used to having something in their hands. Once people get use to the idea of printing the schedule themselves or knowing where to look to find information, it becomes a little less stressful,” he said.

In addition to environmental benefits, Vanderpool said that keeping schedules posted online also gives the department greater flexibility to make changes to the schedules.

“Actually, we may have elected to not make the change in previous years due to the cost of reprinting. Now we are free to make a change without a cost attached,” he said, citing new adjustments to the Nob Hill apartments bus schedule. 

This is not the first move the department has made to reduce paper usage. Three years ago, they stopped printing interim bus schedules in favor of posting them online and at bus shelters.

“We hope that this is a trend that will be followed by other campuses,” Vanderpool said.

Centro bus schedules are still available on campus in printed form. 

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