Due to decline in rides and involvement, Tarleton Alternative Transportation or TAT will come to an end this spring.

TAT is a “volunteer-run organization [which] provides one option for a safe ride home from local establishments on Thursday and Friday evenings,” Caris Thetford, Substance Abuse and Violence Prevention Program Coordinator, said.

The purpose of TAT is to give students an opportunity to decrease the risk of having an accident relating to alcohol.

As great as this type of program might seem, this semester will be the last it is offered too students. Not because the program wasn’t working, but because “interest in TAT has dropped significantly over the past 4.5 years,” Thetford said.

TAT depends on volunteers to drive vans, who are traditionally members of a student organization. However, TAT has allowed for individual students to volunteer, because “TAT has had to cancel [some nights], or the executive members have had to fill in, several times due to organizations not showing up for shifts or not signing up to provide rides at all,” Thetford said.

Thetford thinks that one possible factor in the decline of TAT is that the current generation of students is using designated drivers more frequently.

Because this is the last semester for TAT, it will “free up significant resources in terms of staff time and office budget to serve our students in more effective ways,” Thetford said.

“Our office has been implementing new efforts – as well as working to abandon ineffective or even harmful practices across campus – for several years.”

With the abandonment of TAT, new resources will be made available for students to help them in other ways and allow them to grow and thrive in their college years while being safe.