Dawson College
OP-16: Student Commute Modal Split

A survey for students enrolled in Regular Day programs was developed by the Quality Assurance and Planning Office and the Sustainability Coordinator. The survey was based on the guidelines published in the STARS Technical Manual (Version 2.1) with regard to criterion OP 16: Student Commute Modal Split. The survey was posted on Omnivox between November 13th and November 19th 2017. Students could access the survey via the MyDawson portal. Students received a notification of the survey when they logged into the portal and the survey was also advertised on the College’s Facebook page. Students were asked to indicate what mode of transportation they used during the previous week (November 6th to the 10th). If they took more than one mode of transportation to school each day, they were instructed to only count the mode taken for the longest distance during their commute to and from school. Students who completed the survey were informed that their name would be put in for a random draw of one of five $20 movie passes. There were a total of 4,176 Regular Day students who completed the survey. This represents a participation rate of 51.2% based on an enrolment of 8,164 Day students in the Fall 2017 semester. The College offers two types of programs: pre-university and technical/career. The percentage of students enrolled in the pre-university sector in Fall 2017 was 67.7% and the participation rate in the survey of students from the pre-university sector was 68.6%. The percentage of students enrolled in the technical/career sector in Fall 2017 was 32.2% and the participation rate in the survey of students from this sector was 31.4%. Given this distribution of responses, the College considers the sample of students who participated in the survey to be a representative sample. Quantitative analysis of the data was completed using SPSS (Statistical Program for the Social Sciences, Version 20).