It’s three months later and Fresno State’s shuttle bus, Bulldog Express, continues to aim toward providing students with a reliable transportation system.

Bulldog Express, launched on Jan. 25, provides students with two shuttle buses, with stops at six locations — Bulldog Lane and Millbrook Avenue, Millbrook Avenue and Barstow, Campus Drive at North Gym, Save Mart Center parking lot, Campus Pointe and their new stop — Athlete Village. ­

Total cost for the shuttle will be $653,446.13 for three semesters, parking and transportation manager Tom Gaffery said.

The shuttle takes approximately 15 minutes to get to each stop and is geared toward students who live within a one-mile radius from campus as well as students who park at the Save Mart Center’s parking lot.

“I think that it has really been a great new program for our students, and we see ridership continuing to increase from week to week,” said Gaffery.

The shuttle drivers keep a log of ridership. During the week of Feb. 29, approximately 2,300 students rode the shuttle.

“We are continuing to see it [ridership] increase by a couple hundred riders every week,” Gaffery said. “So it’s continued to grow every week since it launched.”

In March, ridership continued to swell.

Gaffery said Bulldog Express operated for 19 days during March and had 6,644 students boarding.

The stop with the highest ridership last month was Campus Drive, which had 3,319 riders.

Following was Campus Pointe with 2,109 riders; Bulldog Lane and Millbrook Avenue with 516 riders; Millbrook and Barstow avenues with 485 riders; and Save Mart Center’s parking lot with 215.

As of now, Gaffery said the ridership demographics are unclear. However, an automatic system, that will keep track of who rides the shuttle and the number of riders, will be installed within weeks.

Aaliyah Mares, psychology major, said she rode the shuttle almost every day since it launched.

“At first, there were a few of us, like five or six of us, but now, lately, there’s been like 10 or 15 [riders],” she said. “Maybe because everyone thinks that it’s more convenient now.” ­

Sonia Seve, sociology major, has been using Bulldog Express for over a month.

“When I first started going on it, it didn’t seem like [a lot of people rode the shuttle], but taking it now, a lot of people have been taking it,” Seve said.

She thinks the number of riders has increased because it allows students a way to get to school without having to ride a bicycle or walk. ­­

Although she does think that the shuttle is a good resource, “I feel like the drop-off is kind of in one area,” she said. “I would like it to be at the business building, too.”

Gaffery said Fresno State is continuing to look into providing additional stops. ­

“[However], we’re constrained because we want to make sure that we continue to provide 15-minute service,” he said. ­

In order to improve the service, Gaffery said there will be a section in the Fresno State mobile application where riders will be able to track where the shuttle is and estimate its arrival time.

“Now they can see right then and there how long the bus is going to take to get there,” he said.

Additionally, shuttle buses will soon have ID card swipes at the entrance of the bus. This will act as the automatic system that will keep track of ridership and enable riders to automatically be entered into contests exclusively for shuttle riders and more.

The launch date for the real-time tracking and ID card swipe has not been released, but, Gaffery said, they will be released within weeks.