A partnership between the University bus system and the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority will likely be solidified within the next two months, Transportation and Parking Services Director Patrick Cunningham said yesterday.

"There is a potential of saving $4 million and the purchase of future buses and up to $150,000 a year in operational savings," Cunningham said. "Any bus service that AATA does for us will not result in any increased cost to students, faculty, and staff."

Bus service for the University community would remain free, he said.

Cunningham and Administrative Manager David Miller met with University bus drivers Saturday afternoon to discuss integrating services with AATA.

"We wanted to inform our staff of the talks we are having with AATA and tell them how this might affect them individually," Cunningham said.

Scott Burkhardt, who has been a University driver for four years and is a member of the bus drivers" union, said his concerns on the issue relate to trust. The drivers" suggestions for improving service have not been considered, he said.

"They refuse to put into writing that union jobs will be lost or what jobs will be lost to AATA," he said.

Cunningham said current negotiations do not call for the elimination of student drivers who are not union members or union jobs.

"We have about 30 percent of student bus drivers leave in any given year due to graduation and new jobs," Cunningham said. "So any loss of hours that we take, we believe we can do that without affecting the number of student positions we have. That is our goal, to do this in away that doesn"t affect the current staff."

An internal transportation department memo from Miller obtained by The Michigan Daily recommends AATA begin by running little-used Nite Owl, late-night and weekend routes.

The daytime Bursley-Baits route should be the first high-volume route to transfer service to AATA, the memo suggests.

Cunningham said an article in this month"s issue of Mass Transit magazine contained inaccurate information from AATA Executive Director Greg Cook stating that as many as 90,000 annual service hours would be transferred from the University to AATA

The University actually would lose a total of 30,000 hours over a period of three years, Cunningham said. "We made it very clear to the staff this was inaccurate," he said of the article.

The University ran 105,715 hours of service during the last fiscal year, according to the memo. Student drivers accounted for nearly 29,000 of those hours.

Some drivers said they were concerned about Cook"s record while working for a Columbus, Ohio, transportation company. The drivers said that after integrating his transportation system with the Ohio State University transportation system, the level of service decreased significantly.

"I don"t think either party will do anything that doesn"t make good business sense," Cook said.

Cook said integrating AATA with the University bus system will not have the same effect as it did at Ohio Sate because the two campuses are arranged differently.

"The buses in Ohio run main campus to north campus and do a circulation on campus," Cook said. "The University (of Michigan) campus is set up so that the roads weave through the community."

Cunningham said the goal of the University is not to reduce the service, but to improve it. The efficiency of the system would undergo continual examination.

"We believe any contract we have will specify service standards. We will do this only a year at a time, so if we are unsatisfied with service, we can try to improve the service," he said.

A union bus driver who asked to remain anonymous said the University community will be unhappy with AATA"s service because they will not be able to operate buses which stop at a location every two and a half-minutes.

"The Bursley-Baits route operates at peak times when people are going to class in the morning," the driver said. "AATA is not going to do that."

Some drivers said the main consequence of a partnership with AATA is the loss of service to students. Widespread AATA bus use might mean fewer stops on mornings when students need to go to class and no late-night service on the weekends.

Cunningham refuted the possibility of less stops and locations. "It is our goal not to reduce service, but to improve it," Cunningham said. "We have the NiteOwl that goes till 2 a.m., and the AATA would also have to operate until 2 a.m."

Cunningham also said the waiting period between bus arrivals will remain the same or will be improved. "The bus stop time has to be as short or shorter and we have to be able to stop at all the places we have currently," he said.

The drivers have formed a committee of student and union drivers who will speak at the University Board of Regents meeting on Feb. 15.