Many students on campus have had the pleasure – or lack thereof – of experiencing the Huskie Bus Line. There are 12 bus routes that you can use to go to grocery stores, residence halls and academic buildings, among other spots. However, many students also fight with bus line issues and NIU’s ETA Spot app.
The Huskie Bus Line needs to improve its app. Reliability is not the app’s strong suit, with it sometimes not showing the buses on route even though it’s their app-stated arrival time.
This can get extra confusing when some buses read “Not In Service,” even though they’re doing routes.
Still, the Huskie Bus Line is popular among students. Savannah Eagon, a first-year family consumer science major, shared her experience with the Huskie Line crowds.
“I was getting from DuSable (Hall) back to Stevenson (residence hall), and the bus was completely packed like sardines,” Eagon said.
It’s fantastic that the Huskie Bus Line is free to NIU students, staff and faculty members. But if students are late to their classes because of an inaccurate bus tracking system, the purpose feels defeated.
DeKalb should give the Huskie Bus Line the makeover it deserves to improve students’ needs and wants.
Thankfully, Michael Neuenkirchen, the transit manager for the city of DeKalb, says there may be improvements to the Huskie Bus Line on the way.
“We’ve secured about $20 million in funding for a new transit facility, which we’re working on designing and getting built. We’ve secured about $5 million to purchase new buses, and we’re working through that process right now to buy some new buses,” Neuenkirchen said. “We’re really expecting in the next two years to start seeing some new buses, including diesel electric hybrid vehicles, even some electric vehicles on the road.”
Additional buses would be an ideal improvement as the 2L and 2R buses fill up quickly. Often, students have to either walk to their destination or wait for another bus to stop.
“We actually rescheduled the entire service so that there is now three 2L in the morning, and four 2R in the morning, and then the afternoon, we flip that: there’s four 2L and three 2Rs, so that we can hopefully assist getting the students to and from the dorms, the tower, back and forth to their classes for the majority of the day,” said Brian Van Hine, the assistant transit manager for the city of DeKalb.
Neuenkirchen also said the Huskie Bus Line is the one of the two companies in the United States that uses the ETA Spot app. Huskie Bus Line management also has some funding set aside to have new computer-aided device/automatic vehicle location (AVL/CAD) technology which could mean a new bus tracker app in two years.
The AVL/CAD system is a technology that many other bus systems use. It automatically collects the data from the dispatchers and could provide more detailed information about the buses location to the bus tracker apps.
In the meantime, students should take advantage of the Huskie Bus Line that’s free to them, but be cautious about its timeliness. If you need to get to class fast, the Huskie Bus Line might not be your best bet, so plan ahead.
Students can track the different bus routes through the city of DeKalb website or ETA Spot app.
Some of the buses go out of service pretty quickly, so make sure to check the app pretty often. If the app freezes or the tracking becomes inaccurate, you may be out of luck.
If you want to go out late at night, you can also utilize the Huskie Safe Line, which is Bus Route 11.
“As long as you can get to the (Holmes) Student Center, you can get anywhere, because the Student Center is like your main, that’s where all the buses meet,” Eagon said. “But another tip, not even using Spot app, but using Google Maps, by, like, clicking on the public transport button, it will show you what bus, what bus routes to take and where it’s going to stop.”
