Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

Penn State Meets Sustainability Goals

  • 10/01/18
Penn State

Penn State campuses use GEM vehicles to achieve sustainability.

As sustainability initiatives on college campuses continue to evolve, vehicles with sustainable power sources, street-legal status, and small vehicle footprints provide a flexible solution to meet campus transportation and maintenance needs. Pennsylvania State University is no exception. Across its vast campus, Penn State relies on GEM to transport passengers, haul equipment, and assist with landscape management.

According to Bruce Cifelli, Penn State’s equipment management and services administrator, finding an electric vehicle with long battery life was key. Anything less than eight hours a day simply wouldn’t provide enough range to get the job done. GEM’s array of battery options gave Penn State the ability to select a battery system that does just that, without wasting time to charge up.

Penn State needed a vehicle with features much more comparable to an automotive truck. GEM’s design flexibility enabled Penn State to pick and choose the extra features it required—truck-backs, flat beds, and ladder racks—to match a variety of different campus uses. While still street legal, GEM’s compact footprint allows users to easily maneuver where large trucks cannot.

In the business of campus maintenance, time is money. Vehicles must be at peak performance to maintain efficiency and get jobs done. Since adding GEM to their fleet of utility vehicles, Cifelli says his team has already noticed a difference in reliability, and downtime has been reduced. These time and cost savings go directly to the bottom line and give a lower total cost of ownership than trucks.

GEM is a testament to the practicality of a low speed, street legal, electric option. Its perfect mix of versatility and power helps Penn State achieve its sustainability goals, without increasing budget requirements or sacrificing productivity—all while ensuring campus is running smoothly.

gem.polaris.com

This article originally appeared in the College Planning & Management October 2018 issue of Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • Surging Demand for Student Housing Fuels Major Campus Investment Opportunities

    University leaders throughout the U.S. are accelerating plans to modernize and expand student housing as enrollment stabilizes and demand for on-campus living rebounds. Recent data from the National Center for Education Statistics indicates that total postsecondary enrollment is projected to grow through the end of the decade, with undergraduate enrollment alone expected to increase by more than 8 percent by 2030.

  • GeoCam and UCLA: Modernizing Campus Accessibility Mapping

    In early 2025, UCLA partnered with GeoCam to capture and modernize its pedestrian infrastructure data. The goal was ambitious but clear: to produce a high-accuracy, imagery-backed digital map of every sidewalk, pathway, ramp, and ADA-related feature on UCLA’s 419-acre campus.

  • California Middle School Breaks Ground on Major Renovation Project

    The Hillsborough City School District (HCSD) in Hillsborough, Calif., recently began construction on new multipurpose and administration facilities for Crocker Middle School, according to a news release.

  • UT-San Antonio Begins Residence Hall Renovations

    The University of Texas at San Antonio recently began a $6-million renovation project to one of its residence halls, according to a news release. Originally completed in 1986, Chisolm Hall measures in at 120,860 square feet and is the oldest and largest residence hall on campus.