Table 4 Most Important Characteristics of the Transportation System

Characteristic	% Student	% Faculty & Staff
Convenient	88%	89%
Reliable	80%	83%
Inexpensive	78%	70%
Safe	74%	74%
Direct	68%	24%
Non-Polluting	30%	70%
Attractive	17%	21%

Evaluation of the e-trans system:

Twenty-eight percent (413) of the students and 3% of the faculty staff evaluated the e-trans bus system. Table 5 provides percentage for student responses. Because of this low percent of respondents who responded to items on the e-trans system, these results should be supplemented with other research.

Table 5 Item 14: Evaluation of the e-trans System (Percent of Respondents)

	Characteristics	Poor						Excellent
Mean		1		2	3	4	5		6
4.3	Safe	3		6	17	26	27		20
4.1	Convenient	7		10	19	21	24		19
3.8	Comfortable	5		9	25	27	22		11
3.8	Reliable	6		13	23	24	23		12
3.7	Attractive	8		10	25	29	20		9
3.7	Destination Served	10		12	19	23	24		12
3.7	Hours of service	11		13	22	16	22		15
3.5	Frequency of Service	11		16	22	21	20		9
3.2	Fast	12		19	29	21	13		6

The response set for evaluating the e-trans system was a 6-point interval scale, with 6 as excellent, 1 as poor. The means for the responses indicate the "center" or "middle" of the data provided by the riders of the e-trans system. Thus, the center of the evaluation data for "safe" and "convenient" lies between the intervals of 4 and 5 on the 6-point interval scale. The center of the evaluation data for "comfortable", "reliable", "attractive", "destination served", "hours of service", "frequency of service" and "fast" and "convenient" lies between the intervals of 3 and 4 on the 6-point interval scale. Comparing these findings with those above that talk about the valued characteristics of the transportation system, offers the following conclusions: Because students highly value convenience and reliability and somewhat highly value safety, their opinions of the e-trans system will move toward the excellent rating as the e-trans system continues to enhance their services in these areas.