When the buses stop running, students can still get a ride home—but don’t call the service SafeRides.
Sam Veraldi, director of Duke Parking and Transportation, said the administration has consolidated two transportation services: SafeRides, typically used by students, and the Duke Hospitals van service. The merged service is now called Duke Vans.
“We combined two separate organizations and dispatch functions as a matter of efficiency and from a budget standpoint,” Veraldi said.
Duke Vans is a Duke Parking and Transportation service that runs when buses stop for the night. Duke Vans are available to pick up anyone with a valid University ID on campus and drop them off anywhere on campus or at private residences within a defined boundary area off campus. The service operates between the hours of 5 p.m. and 7 a.m.
Students were not informed of the change because the consolidation and new name have not altered the level of services offered to the University, Veraldi said.
“We’re operating the same number of vans with the same service hours. From the Duke student perspective, nothing changed,” Veraldi said.
The Duke Vans consolidation was driven partly by financial considerations. Veraldi said that although the change was not an attempt to save the University “hundreds of thousands of dollars,” it is the first step in what will be a series of changes to Duke Parking and Transportation. An exact savings estimate is unavailable, he added.
“What we essentially did was cut our dispatch staff by half and bring the physical locations and phone systems down to one,” Veraldi said.
Sophomore Chris Brown, Duke Student Government vice president for athletics and campus services, also said the name change has no effect upon the service for students. Brown said changing the name from SafeRides to Duke Vans was an attempt to convey the fact that the van service is not just a last resort for a ride when students feel in danger.
“It’s pretty understandable that any ride, any Duke form of transportation, is going to be safe,” Brown said. “It’s not a change at all for the students. It’s addressing a concern that if students actually feel unsafe, they should be calling other resources. We’re trying to meet all the student transit needs instead of taking students to Cosmic [Cantina] late at night.”
Brown said that when students call for a ride, they will hear a voice recording first and then be transferred to an operator.
Phoebe Noe, a sophomore, wrote in an e-mail that the name change is logical to convey to students that Duke Vans “are a general service, not just some emergency only service.”
“I think people will feel less alarmist taking it,” Noe said.
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