At Ole Miss, Improved Busing Cut Carbon and Costs

There is one truth about college: buying a parking pass is a painful rite of adulthood. Every year, tens of thousands of American students shell out up around $900 per year to park their cars on strained campus lots. Now students at Ole Miss are working with local transportation authorities to reduce cars, carbon and cost on campus. Their solution? Bring on the buses!

Students Erin Parsons and Lexi Combs recently shared their busing ideas with Planet Forward. The pair hopes to increase bus ridership by making buses more accessible to non-student members of the Oxford, Mississippi community. This means slapping GPS locators on each bus so potential riders can see exactly when their ride will arrive.

By expanding bus service to traditionally overlooked portions of the community, the Oxford Planning Committee hopes to reduce reliance on automobiles and private transportation. Cutting even a few cars from the road can prevent tons of greenhouse gas emissions every year, as well as saving on increasing fuel costs. Ole Miss may be boosting green in both the environment and community wallets!

New Technology Updates Public Transportation from Center for Innovative Media on Vimeo.

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Comments

[Kevin Cozart]

09:56 AM on 01/25/2011

I would only add to this story that part of the fuel running the buses comes from used cooking oil produced by local restaurants that is turned into bio-diesel by a group of students and faculty at The University.