Campus Safety may buy Segways

By Johanna Mitchell

Two environmentally friendly, short-distance transportation alternatives may be added to Campus Safety's arsenal next month.

One two-wheeled Segway and one three-wheeled T3 Motion were tested over the span of a week during October. Charlie Arolla, director of Campus Safety, said he plans to make a decision whether or not to purchase vehicles for the Campus Safety staff by the end of November.

The purchase of the electric vehicles would add Santa Clara to a growing list of universities incorporating these types of transportation to their security force, including the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of San Francisco.

"Everybody is going green," said Phil Beltran, assistant director of Campus Safety.

Beltran said he would have liked to incorporate the university's focus on sustainability during the recent purchase of two much larger vehicles -- Toyota Tacoma trucks.

The need to haul equipment outweighed the possibility of acquiring hybrid vehicles, as there are currently no hybrid pickups on the market, he said.

In addition to driving the trucks, Campus Safety officers currently ride bicycles, walk or drive electric carts while traversing the 106-acre campus grounds during their 12-hour shifts.

Both of the new personal transport vehicles would allow officers to reach speeds of up to 20 miles per hour and to access areas faster than current methods, said Arolla.

The University of San Francisco purchased two Segways over the summer to assist officers in parking regulation in the hills that surround their campus, said Dan Lawson, USF director of public safety.

Lawson said that the new environmentally friendly vehicles can travel about 20 miles before they need to be recharged, and though the price tag is steep -- around $5,000 each -- he said the response from the public has been overwhelmingly positive.

"I think they would work great on (Santa Clara's) campus," said Lawson. "They will get officers from place to place quickly, and they go anywhere a person could go."

The smaller size of the vehicles would allow officers to ride them along paths that cannot be accessed by carts. Segway-riding officers would also be able to travel on elevators without dismounting the vehicles.

Internal balance sensors keep Segway vehicles eternally upright, but maneuvering them did not come easily, said Arolla, who was one of 10 Campus Safety personnel to take a trial run.

In addition, neither the Segways nor the T3 Motion vehicles have shock absorbers that are sufficiently suited to ride over speed bumps, and they have a weight limit of approximately 250 pounds.

Contact Johanna Mitchell at (408) 554-4546 or jjmitchell@scu.edu.