The mass transit committee of the Student Association has recommended $27,000 for the purchase of five monitors in an effort to expand the Huskie Tracks GPS.

However, the recommendation still has to be reviewed and approved by the finance committee, the Residence Hall Association, and the Senate for it to take effect.

Mass transit director Brent Keller said that the expansion of the system was one of the main platforms SA president Jarvis Purnell ran on during the election. Currently, there are only three Huskie Tracks screens on campus, with two in the Holmes Student Center, and one in DuSable Hall.

“It was brought forward as an administrative goal. To bring the SA to the students,” Keller said during the committee’s Tuesday night meeting.

Later in an interview, Keller said the Huskie Tracks system has had a student-driven purpose since its conception.

“When this project was first created, it had three explicit goals. It was to remove guesswork from bus dispatching, which was originally done by very old, antiquated radio systems,” Keller said.

The other two goals, according to Keller, were to communicate the bus’ position to students and to improve NIU’s transportation systems overall.

Although three senators were absent from the meeting, the recommendation was approved unanimously. Sen. Robert Sorsby spoke positively of the screens, saying “It takes out a lot of guesswork of students trying to get to the busses.”

Keller said the chair of GPS expansion project is student trustee Shaun Crisler.

Documents obtained through the SA and containing data obtained by the Office of the Student Trustee puts the cost of the hardware components of the screens at $4,844. In addition, the cost of the software is listed as a one time fee of $595, and annual fee of $420 for each television.

However, the document states all costs are based on the previous purchase.

The document lists Lincoln, Grant South, Grant North, Stevenson North and the Northern View Community as potential locations for the screens.

According to the documents, the SA would absorb $2,695.00 of the costs, which is the one-time annual fee, and the annual software fees of each television. The rest of the cost would be broken down by the residence halls, with each having to pay the cost of the hardware components. This cost of $4,844 is then divided between the SA, the RHA and the hall council of the particular dorm.

Keller expressed positive support for the expansion, and that the number of organizations involved is a sign of support.

“I think that, on all levels of the entire project, we’re trying to get consent from all levels of campus government to do this. I think that that is indicative of support of the project,” Keller said.

If approved by the RHA and the Finance Committee, it will be the second SA bill that will have addressed expanding the Huskie Tracks.

The first bill, which allocated $10,000 to the RHA for purchasing a screen for the Northern View Community and first introduced into the Senate on Oct. 14, was tabled to the SA Finance Committee and later amended by the RHA. SA treasurer Ricky Garcia said the amount of money requested has been reduced to $5,000 and only covers RHA programming.

In addition to expanding the number of screens, the Huskie Tracks content will be expanded as well. Currently, business advertisements are displayed on the screens, but Keller said that option will be expanded to students as well.

“In the future, we’ll also be able to provide organizations with an opportunity to note their next meetings and dues coming up,” Keller said. The screens would be used to broadcast warnings to students if the situation warrants.

Also during the meeting, the mass transit committee approved GPS transponders for the NIU FreedomMobiles. FreedomMobiles is a vehicular transportation service for physically-disabled students, and Keller said they will eventually be tracked on the GPS system.

The committee also discussed creating a survey to be filled out by students taking the shuttle to Elburn. Keller said that last week’s tickets had been sold out by Wednesday, and this was becoming more frequent.

“I haven’t received any complaints about the service, just that the service isn’t available,” Keller said. The surveys will be made available to students when they purchase a ticket for the shuttle starting at the end of this week.