Solve parking and congestion woes by introducing an expanded range of university commuter services.
University and college campuses face a unique set of transportation demand management challenges. Parking is limited, forcing schools to make difficult choices when determining how to distribute permits. Students, staff and faculty tend to keep irregular hours, given the prevalence of evening and weekend classes.
A lot of schools provide free or subsidized transit passes, which helps but doesn’t often provide a complete solution. Given how limited most campus parking facilities are, colleges and universities usually need to take a multi-pronged approach that combines several effective strategies.
One emerging approach that’s making waves at campuses across the country is to expand the available range of university commuter services. Mobile connectivity has created new possibilities that didn’t exist before the smartphone revolution. Schools that embrace cutting-edge commute to school apps open up a dynamic range of smart, sustainable transportation choices.
Ridesharing is one of the most popular alternatives. Campus ridesharing programs usually take one of two forms:
- Carpooling communities: Students, staff and faculty can join carpools with regular schedules, or access available carpools on an as-needed basis to travel to or from campus. Carpools can also extend to weekend rides home, getaways during school breaks, and more.
- Vanpool services: Arrange vanpool shuttles from nearby city landmarks or major public transit stations and give campus members a convenient and affordable alternative to driving.
Both are cost-effective, high-impact options with strong appeal for students with limited transportation budgets.
Understand the features of an effective campus carpool network.
For a university carpool network to work effectively it has to meet students where they are and provide incentive to connect and explore ridesharing possibilities. This, first and foremost, means providing an app based experience. Students spend more time on their phones than ever, are accustomed to apps like Uber and Lyft. Additionally they are often on the go making an app based experience critical.
For the university it’s crucial to keep students engaged with the network to ensure that the pool of potential drivers and riders remains robust. This requires specific functionality within the app including making the app engaging with photos or avatars for the users and in app chat and other ways for users to connect with each other. Often rideshare platforms are doomed because as soon as a match is made, users leave the app for more informal communication channels resulting in a diminished user pool and therefore less likely matches.
Finally, gamification and small rewards or incentives are helpful for engaging and maintaining engagement with student populations. While students often need alternatives more than faculty and staff due to the costs of parking or not having a personal vehicle, offering small rewards is a great way to get students on board and keep them engaged on a regular basis.
Interested in making a vanpool part of your university ridesharing program? Follow these planning tips to success.
Adding a vanpool to your university ridesharing and commuter services is an excellent way to solve the so-called “first mile/last mile” dilemma. Vanpools provide convenient, direct links between campus and major transportation hubs. They’re especially effective in schools that draw a lot of commuters but aren’t well-served by high-speed forms of public transportation.
Here are some strategic keys that can help make your vanpool program a success:
- Schedule regular service with increased frequency during peak hours
- Integrate vanpools into your existing rideshare matching and commuter management services
- Promote the service through widely used communication channels so campus members know about it
Finally, make your vanpool accessible to all campus members, rather than restricting eligibility to only students. You’ll maximize the efficiency of your operational budget and drive higher participation rates by making vanpooling an option for all campus community members.
Campus communities enjoy major benefits by adding university ridesharing programs to their list of transportation options.
These university ridesharing options deliver significant, continuous benefits to campuses, including:
- Reduced demand for parking, leading to cost savings
- Less on-campus vehicular traffic, improving safety for pedestrians and cyclists
- A clear alignment with environmentally responsible values
- Decreased emissions and pollution
They’re also a great social tool for helping students, staff and faculty interact with a broader range of community members. By helping you create and manage new university commuter services, Pave Commute can help you build a stronger and more interconnected campus.
The Pave Commute app delivers a best in class carpool matching tool along with a range of gamification and rewards tools to encourage student commuters to engage and stick. We’ve already helped a long and growing list of schools around the world better manage their transportation needs, and we’d love to add your campus to our list of success stories. Get started today with a trial or contact us and schedule a time to chat.
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