ersity Program


live in Northern California but attend UCLA will use it to find rides home at breaks and on holidays. Now, Zimride is building suc-


cessful programs around daily com- muting populations at schools such as the University of California San Francisco, where students, staff and faculty are sharing their regular trips in and out of campus. Arideshare systembegs the ques-


Zimride co-founders Logan Green and John Zimmer


fortable signing up.” Whereas the former rideshare


program at UCLA had only a handful of participants, after six months, the new campus program had more than 2,600 users and had loggedmore than 9,500 trips. “It’s a second generation of


rideshare software,” Tritipeskul said. “There are a number of companies that use social networking sites (like Facebook and MySpace) to assist in getting the program to ‘go viral’ in a university.” “Critical mass is only one


requirement for a successful pro- gram,” Zimmer said. “Trust is also extremely important. The integration with Facebook allows participants to get to know a bit about a person before jumping in their car. “Also, the (Zimride) system


requires that all participants have a university e-mail address. This means you are talking to someone who is actually a student or a staffmember at the school. All this permits an ele- ment of trust to develop,” he said. Each Zimride system partner is


assigned a marketing specialist. “They assist the school in promoting the program, give presentations to groups on campus, open booths at campus events, and work to ensure our schools quickly reach the critical mass of users necessary to ensure a successful Zimride program,” Zim- mer said. Zimride began as a program to


match people who needed to take sin- gle, longer trips. For example, at Cor- nell, where more than 3,000 students use the system, itmatches peoplewho need to return to New York City for theweekend. In California,manywho


tion:Who is most often looking for a ride, a driver or a passenger? “We get an even split between drivers and ride requests.Many are one-shot rides, and many develop longer-term rideshare relationships,”Tritipeskul said. “We find that many in the pro-


grammay have different ride partners on different days. A person could be in two or more carpools, depending on their schedule. Staff has a tenden- cy to gravitate toward a more consis- tent schedule. “I live in the San Fernando Val-


ley about 15 miles from UCLA and tend to take the bus to work,” Tri- tipeskul said. “Via Zimride, I have found a potential driver who lives in my area. Naturally, we connected via Facebook. “The potential commuter and I


have exchanged messages and become Facebook friends, which meant he and I could see each other’s profiles. I now know that this person is around my age, went to the same high school as some people I know, and what he looks like. “The Facebook integration


demystifies ridematching. I may not be able to ridewith himevery day, but having a ride even a few days a week is a great help,” Tritipeskul said. Zimmer noted that these pro-


grams are of great benefit to a univer- sity, particularly those that can’t build more parking due to lack of space. “Every rideshare takes one car out of the system. It lowers congestion, is environmentally healthy, and reduces the need for more parking. “This type of program needs no


infrastructure and offers the lowest cost per trip of any type of commuter program,” Zimmer said. “We take existing infrastructure and make it more efficient.”


John Zimmer, a Co-Founder of Zimride, is the company’s COO. He can be reached at john@zimride.com.


PT


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