The new UTA Ed-Passes are here…finally.
The UCard Office, Commuter Services and the University Campus Store are now issuing the passes to students, faculty and staff.
While working at the UCard Office on Wednesday, Sarah England, an undeclared sophomore, helped the steady line of U commuters with their new passes.
“People have been trying to come in and get new ones for months,” England said.
The UCard Office and Commuter Services began issuing passes Wednesday. The Campus Store began issuing passes today.
The passes were delayed roughly five weeks, when the manufacturers, with bases in China, hit some unexpected hurdles in shipping.
“We didn’t take into account that the Chinese Olympics would be slowing down customs,” said Carrie Bohnsack-Ware, the spokeswoman for UTA.
The new Ed-Pass cards have a built-in computer chip that shows the cardholder’s current enrollment or employment status at the U when scanned.
Bohnsack-Ware says this technology, combined with new pass readers on buses and at TRAX stations, will give UTA a more accurate account of who is riding.
“(The readers) won’t tell us exactly who the person is, just that they are a U student, where they get on, and at what time,” she said. “This will give us an amazing amount of information that we can use to tailor our system.”
UTA will install pass readers in all buses by December. The readers will reach TRAX stations sometime in December or January. UTA will have rider data from those first few months ready in March or April.
This new technology will also allow the U and other Utah colleges and universities to invalidate their campuses’ missing passes, and the passes of former employees and students. There was no way to invalidate passes with the old system.
The new passes are expected to save the U a lot of hassle from here on out, said Alma Allred, the director of Commuter Services. In the past, the U issued a new pass to each commuter at the beginning of each school year. The new passes will carry over from year to year.
“It will be easier for us in the long run. We’ll go from issuing 30,000 each year to seven or eight thousand,” Allred said.
Students, faculty and staff must present their UCards at one of the three offices to receive a new UTA Ed-Pass. Students can still use their UCards to ride UTA until Oct. 31.