Within the next few years, 15-passenger vans, which are used to
transport commuters and students to and from campus, will disappear
from UCLA in accordance with a bill passed last September.
According to studies conducted by the National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration, the vans have high centers of gravity,
making them more likely to roll over.
Assembly Bill 626 requires that 15-passenger vans used at all
school districts, private schools, community colleges and the
California State University system only be driven by those with
Class B or commercial driver’s licenses, by Jan. 1, 2005.
“It’s not like driving your typical SUV or your
typical station wagon,” said Candice Chung, spokeswoman for
state assembly member Carol Liu, D-La Cañada Flintridge, who
submitted the bill. “We thought it was important to … make
sure that these drivers are equipped to handle these
vans.”
The bill recommends but does not require that the UC Regents
adopt the regulations. But throughout the UC system, including
UCLA, the rules and regulations outlined in the bill will be
adopted per instructions from the UC Office of the President, said
Sherry Lewis, general manager of Fleet and Transit Services for
UCLA.
UCOP is also recommending eventually eliminating the usage of
the vans and replacing them with smaller vehicles.
Approximately 180 of the larger vans are still being used
throughout UCLA in the commuter vanpool program and as campus
shuttles. The vanpool program, which provides commuters throughout
Southern California with vans to travel to and from UCLA, uses the
majority of the vans.
In the next three years, UCLA will phase out the 15-passenger
vans and swap them for 11-passenger vans, requiring more vehicles
to support the number of vanpool users. Fleet and Transportation
Services is still evaluating how many of the smaller vans will be
needed.
Penny Menton, associate director of Transportation Services,
estimated that for every 10 of the larger vans Transportation
Services phases out, they will need to replace them with 13 or 14
vans that hold 11 passengers to compensate for the loss in
passenger capacity.
During the three years of phasing out the vehicles, vanpool
drivers are going to receive additional safety training and class B
license equivalency training. The drivers are UCLA employees who
volunteer to drive the vans for free or for discounted commuting
fees.
Currently, drivers already receive safety training and have
three to four safety meetings each year. Driver evaluations are
conducted every three years.
“We have one of the safest driving records of all commuter
vanpool programs in existence,” Menton said.
Bill Velez, president of Trukspect Inc., a safety and training
consulting company for the vanpool program, asserts that while the
vans do have a higher center of gravity, most of the accidents
occur from driver inexperience.
“In reality, (a 15-passenger van) is as safe as any other
vehicle,” Velez said. “In emergency situations, they
will have less stability when driven incorrectly,”
The 11-passenger vehicles cost approximately $26,000, just
$2,000 less than the larger vans. In order to gain a fair return on
what was originally paid for the larger vans, the vehicles will be
made available at public auctions, Lewis said.
By the end of the academic year, the vanpool program will phase
out 46 of its 135 15-passenger vans, which it leases from Fleet and
Transportation Services. By phasing the vans out over a period of
three years, transportation services hopes to avoid raising
commuter fees, Menton said.
Other universities in the UC system also use these vans,
requiring alterations in their commuter programs. The burden UCs
will have to bear varies throughout the system.
UC Irvine currently has seven of the 15-passenger vans, but
leases them from Enterprise Ridesharing, Shital Patel, UCI’s
alternative transportation coordinator, wrote in an e-mail. UCI
will swap the larger vans for smaller eight-passenger vans by the
end of the year.