Abstract
The Mies Campus of Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) is in the high-crime area of Bronzeville in Chicago, with a crime rate significantly higher than the national average. According to anecdotal sources, students report feeling embarrassed due to long waits for off-campus ride services and a lack of equitable resource allocation. This concern is particularly pressing for students who stay late on campus for classes, studying, or project deadlines and must resort to alternative means of transportation such as ride-hailing platforms (e.g., Lyft and Uber) or walking, which can be, respectively, financially burdensome and risky in high-crime areas. Limited pickup locations, an inequitable first-come, first-served system, and uneven fleet distribution exacerbate these issues, leaving many students feeling unsafe.
Despite the efforts and efficiency of the Department of Public Safety (DPS), there is room for improvement in its performance regarding student ride services, as many students face significant challenges during late-night commutes when they are unable to use DPS services. Therefore, IIT should take on the ethical responsibility of addressing the challenges faced by students commuting to the Mies campus.
This project aims to identify the gaps in the DPS ride services by conducting a qualitative study and interviews to gain a deeper understanding of students’ experiences and opinions. After extracting the sub-indicators in each challenge category, relevant solutions and equity indexes are provided to help the university in the development of a fair and effective system for allocating public safety resources.
Introduction
Providing safety for students is one of the key responsibilities of each university. The Mies campus of IIT is located in the Bronzeville area, boasting an annual individual crime rate of 1.2 per 1,000 persons (https://www, n.d.b). IIT is committed to fostering a safe and inclusive environment for its students, faculty, and staff with the support of the DPS. DPS plays a pivotal role in ensuring campus safety through services such as crime prevention, emergency response, on-campus escorts, crime reporting facilitation, collaboration with law enforcement, and student ride services. However, the DPS ride services are utilizing fewer DPS resources now compared to previous years (the fleet is decreased from 4 to 1, and the pickup locations are decreased to two).
DPS Policies
DPS policies are published on their websites, which consist of policies for off-campus escort services as shown below (Longwell-Grice 2018).
The Off-Campus Escorts begin from a central pickup point on Mies Campus and are offered on a first-come, first-serve basis and operate between 7 p.m.–3 a.m. from:
Galvin Library: Sunday–Thursday
The southwest entrance of Hermann Hall: Friday–Saturday
The escort vehicle is normally expected to make two round trips per hour, depending upon how many passenger destinations are requested and traffic conditions. The exact time of arrival and departure, however, cannot be guaranteed.
Requesting a Public Safety Escort
There is no need to call Public Safety to request this type of escort. However, if a wait is more than 30 minutes, passengers are encouraged to call the Public Safety escort phone number to check the status. Otherwise, the escort number, 312.808.6310, is only for on-campus to on-campus escort requests.
ID Requirement
Illinois Tech identification must be shown in order to receive security escorts.
Passengers can request to be dropped off at any point on the route.
The escort driver is also allowed to deviate up to one block from the route to accommodate passengers but must inform the public safety watch commander before doing so.
If no passengers are traveling to the westernmost or easternmost point of the route, the escort driver is authorized to take a shorter route back to campus in order to save time before the next pick-up, again with notification to the watch commander.
During peak times, an additional vehicle may be assigned to the escort route, with one escort vehicle covering the western half of the route and the other vehicle covering the eastern half of the route.
Escort Route
The escort vehicle follows a standard route to cover Bridgeport district at the east of I-90 and Lake Meadows, Prairie Shores and South Commons apartment complexes at the west of I-90. As indicated in Figure 1, the standard route runs west (Bridgeport) on 31st Street to Halsted Street, turns east on 35th Street, makes a short run south on Dearborn to 36th Street, returns north to 33rd Street, then takes 33rd Street and runs east to the Lake Meadows, Prairie Shores and South Commons apartment complexes and at last returns to Mies Campus along 31st Street.
