Bentley University
IN-49: Innovation C

The Shuttle Advisory Committee is a group of faculty, staff and students whose responsibility is to help troubleshoot operational issues and make recommendations to the administration on improvements for the shuttle. This committee is co-chaired by Procurement and Campus Services and the Office of Sustainability. The committee meets for three virtual 1.5-hour meetings per calendar year.
This committee’s major undertaking in fall 2022 was a listening session to ask the community about how to improve shuttle service. The community requested an additional shuttle line that services the local Waltham community. Bentley's graduate students voiced that the lack of transportation options was impairing the quality of life, as many of them do not own cars and were relying on expensive ride services to purchase foods, pick up prescriptions, etc. The Shuttle Advisory Committee identified this as an equity issue and worked to institute a new shuttle line to address these concerns. Working quickly, Bentley has worked to implement this new shuttle route in Fall 2023 because of these findings.
The existence of the Shuttle Advisory Committee created the opportunity for the community to voice their concerns and needs in an efficient manner. This allowed for Bentley to approve and implement this new shuttle route in record time because of already having the buy-in from a diverse group of stakeholders.