Shifan Du is a Master of Public Administration student at the Fels Institute of Government. She spent her semester at Transit Forward Philadelphia working on a project exploring affordable transit options for college students in the Philly region. She created a calculator that compares the costs and benefits of taking SEPTA, driving, or rideshare to common destinations for students. It shows the impact of adopting SEPTA's UPass program in providing affordable transit options for students to get to class and opportunities across the city.
In her report, Shifan shared, "transportation is an important part of college affordability because students need reliable and affordable ways to reach class, work, internships, and other daily activities. This capstone project examines whether the SEPTA Key Advantage UPass program could provide greater value to college students in Philadelphia. Using a model of 100 school-to-destination routes, the analysis compares private driving, Uber/Lyft, Wait & Save, SEPTA Bus/Metro, and SEPTA Regional Rail. The results show that UPass can meaningfully reduce student transportation costs, especially on Regional Rail trips, where the financial value is strongest. Although SEPTA trips may take longer than some other travel options, UPass can make regular transit use much more affordable for students. The project also includes an interactive Shiny app that allows users to explore route costs, travel times, and potential UPass savings. Overall, the findings suggest that more Philadelphia colleges and universities should consider UPass as a practical way to support student transportation access and affordability."
Shifan's project showing time and costs of various transit modes from CCP
On a personal level, Shifan shared that she chose this project because "I am also a college student, and as an international student, I understand how important transportation can be in daily life. Students need to travel not only to class, but also to work, internships, grocery stores, appointments, and other places around the city. For students who do not have a car, a transit benefit like UPass can make daily travel more affordable and easier to manage. That made the project feel very practical and personally relevant to me."
She went on to say, "When I learned more about UPass, it also reminded me of my own experience at American University, where I previously studied in an international academic program. During that time, I was able to experience the convenience of a U-Pass program myself. I also have classmates who studied at American University as undergraduates and had similar experiences with U-Pass. Because of both my own experience and what I heard from people around me, I already had a sense of how helpful a transit benefit like this can be for students."
Swarthmore and Bryn Mawr colleges currently participate in the SEPTA UPass program. Students, faculty, and community members are organizing for these benefits at campuses across the region. Transit Forward Philly has developed a toolkit to support organizing for transit benefits. Shifan is one of the students supporting UPass and shared, "I hope that more schools in Philadelphia, including the University of Pennsylvania, will consider joining UPass in the future."
Shifan shared, "before this project, I mostly thought about public transit as a way to get from one place to another. While working with Transit Forward Philadelphia, I also attended several events organized by TFP. Through the project and those events, I started to look at public transit in a much broader way. I learned more about transit access, affordability, and safety, and how these issues can affect whether people are actually able and willing to use public transit in their daily lives. It also helped me better understand why a benefit like UPass can be meaningful for students.
This project also changed the way I use transportation in my own daily life. I now use public transit much more than I did before. Campus shuttles can sometimes take a long time to arrive, and they do not go everywhere I need to go. Uber and Lyft are convenient, but they can get expensive quickly. For many of the places I usually travel to, especially around Penn and downtown Philadelphia, SEPTA is often a very practical option. I live near Penn, and trolley routes like T1 and T2 are convenient, direct, and often much faster than I expected. As I started using public transit more often, this project also became more meaningful to me. It made me realize that public transit is not just a policy topic. It can make daily life easier, more affordable, and help people feel more connected to the city."
