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 The university is preparing a comprehensive transportation plan for the AUC community when the university moves to New Cairo. It is no secret that transportation to and from AUC’s new campus, located east of Heliopolis and Nasr City, is a major concern voiced by many members of the university’s community, particularly because there is currently limited public transportation serving the New Cairo area.
To ensure that the transportation needs are addressed, the Office of Planning, Assessment, Research and Testing (IPART) recently conducted a transportation survey to assist in the planning of commuting schemes to and from the new campus, including the number of buses, various routes, and pickup locations.
“We are extremely happy with the very large number of respondents,” said Gina Cinali, executive director, IPART, noting that 2708 members of AUC’s community took part in last month’s survey that was made accessible online in English and in hard copy in Arabic.
The questions of the survey focused primarily on determining the current transportation habits, working hours and housing location of AUC’s community. “We tried very hard to encourage as many people to participate in this survey as possible because it is essential that the university develops a strong transportation strategy for its employees and students,” said Paul Donoghue, vice president for planning and administration, who heads the new campus office.
IPART is currently analyzing and compiling the data collected from the survey, which includes 75 pages of comments. The breakdown of respondent categories so far revealed that 1,375 students responded to this transportation survey, a much higher response rate then was received in the last survey administered in Spring 2005, in which only 350 students participated.
“This time the survey achieved its goal of capturing a larger and more representative response, particularly from students – a category underrepresented in the previous survey,” said Cinali. “We now have indications of where respondents intend to live after the move, how they envision their commute, preferred mode of transportation, expected arrival and departure times, use of shuttle and parking facilities, and current commuting patterns,” added Cinali, referring optimistically to the survey findings.
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