Perception, reviews of DOTS don’t always match

It looks like DOTS is at the top of the class this year, with grades so good you could hang them up on the refrigerator.

The Department of Transportation Services aced the College Prowler test in October and continues to receive good reviews after scoring an overall A-minus for its services from the college evaluation site.

Student consensus, however, is split. Many say they are frustrated with the lack of parking availability, heavy ticketing and sky-high fines. But they also praised the reliability of the Shuttle-UM service.

"[The grade's] too high," sophomore English major Alexis Holmes said. "I'm not a big fan of ticketing and some of the parking."

College Prowler, a college rating website, compiles "report cards" for universities based on categories such as athletics, campus dining, parking and nightlife. It creates the ratings based off of student-gathered statistics and evaluations, founder and CEO Luke Skurman said.

A university's transportation "grade" is based on factors such as parking convenience and availability, public transportation and airport proximity, Skurman said.

Students said having to move their cars for sporting events was an inconvenience that made DOTS unworthy of the high grade overall transportation grade — the university got a C grade in parking.

"I don't think it's fair we have to move our cars for games when we pay for a parking permit," sophomore business major Lisseth Orellana said.

Many, however, have seen worse. DOTS Assistant to the Director Beverly Malone said the bus system at this university is better than those she has seen on other state campuses. Malone emphasized the benefit of wireless Internet access on buses and the wide range of the campus' routes.

"[Students] might not realize because they've never been anywhere else, but those are really big benefits," she said.

Many students agreed that the shuttle system was a strong point for DOTS.

"UM Shuttle is great," one poster wrote on College Prowler. "They run mostly on time, and most of the time, the drivers are students who understand that you have a place to be."

korkut@umdbk.com