Officials at UTD’s Parking and Transportation Department said the electronic passes will be operational by the end of the spring semester. Graphic by Eunjee Chong | Mercury Staff.
UTD’s Parking and Transportation Department will implement an electronic
student Dallas Area Rapid Transit pass that will be available as a mobile phone
app, replacing the existing physical sticker placed on Comet Cards.
All actively enrolled UTD students are eligible for free annual DART
passes through the UTD Auxiliary Services website. Cris Aquino, director of UTD
Parking and Transportation, said his department is currently working with DART
to improve the system by giving students the option to have passes on their
phones.
Available for both Android and iPhones, the DART GoPass app will allow
students not only to access their DART passes electronically, but also to plan
trips, said Rebecca Maples, a DART account executive. Maples said the app has
been redesigned to include better security measures and other features to make
traveling more convenient.
“(One) of the other features (is) you can now choose your favorite rail
station,” Maples said. “When you first open it up, you’ve got those options
there. You’ve got better trip planning, and maps, and more security on the
credit usage when you buy the pass.”
Maples said DART is recruiting other DFW-area colleges to the GoPass
system, and — though the GoPass mobile app has been in use by DART for
approximately six years — UTD has only recently started the process of
implementing the GoPass system, joining others such as Southern Methodist
University, UT Southwestern, University of North Texas Dallas College of Law
and the Dallas County Community College District.
Aqunio said UTD is tentatively planning to complete GoPass integration by
the end of the spring semester.
Until that time, according to the Auxiliary Services website, students
will continue to be provided the stickers to verify their possession of a pass.
Additionally, Aquino said, even after the GoPass app is available to students,
the stickers will continue to remain an alternative.
“One challenge right now with the plastic sticker (is) the user can lose
the pass,” Aquino said. “And you may say, ‘Well, somebody can lose their
phone.’ But, you know, if they get another phone, they can just download the
app and be up and running. That’s one of the main benefits right there.”
The process of requesting an electronic pass will remain similar to the
current one. Students will log into the parking portal with their credentials
and request a pass, though there a few key differences.
Aquino said it can often be a challenge to process students’ pass requests
quickly, particularly because they receive most requests at the beginning of
the calendar year, just as the university reopens.
“They’ll have access to their
pass in a short period of time,” Aquino said. “There will (be) some process of
time, of course, because we still need to send (the student’s) information to
DART, DART will need to upload it to their system and ‘turn on’ that request,
for lack of a better term. But the process in time will be reduced
significantly.”