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Students Ride and Learn
Students Ride Bus
Mathematics students hand out
surveys and at the Watterson
bus stop.
More than four hundred Math students are riding local buses in order to gather data for a study on the services provided by the Bloomington-Normal Transit System. Students are collecting data to help determine if changes would help the Transit System better serve its customers. According to Dr. Mike Plantholt, Professor of Mathematics and co-director of the project, We felt this would be a good opportunity to get students involved for two reasons. First, the students are in MAT 111, Data and Chance, and this a real experience in the gathering of data. Second, the project goal is to help Bloomington-Normal Public Transit better serve its riders, so we feel this is a good opportunity for students and faculty to help the local community.

Mike Plantholt and students hand out surveys
Dr. Mike Plantholt and students pass out surveys at the bus stop

The study is being organized by the Mathematics Department and by ISU’s newly formed Statistics Consulting Center, which were contacted by the Bloomington-Normal Transit System to help with this project. Dr. Plantholt and Professor of Mathematics Dr. Jinadasa Gamage co-direct the project, while a mathematics graduate student, Maliha Niitsu, is the main coordinator.

For three days, students rode the buses all day long, in 2-hour shifts, on each of the 15 different bus routes, for a total of about 225 hours of observation and data collection each day. Most student riders are participating as part of a project for the general education class MAT 111: Data and Chance.  Mathematics Instructional Assistant Professors Kevin Boyer, Anne Schmidt, Gina Leffers, Tom Ferry, and Stephanie O'Leary-Johnson are coordinating their classes.

After the data is collected, it will be analyzed by mathematics graduate students Erica Ladewski, Lani Narciso, and Elisha Fuchs, with a report and recommendations due to the Transit System by the end of the semester.
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