RamRide meets safe ride program demand with a mixed fleet
What a unique partnership between [Spare] and Lyft. I have so appreciated the opportunity to work with two different companies that can do multiple things. The partnership has felt smooth to me. I’ve worked with several private companies and I feel like in the beginning, there’s this courtship and once I’m on, it’s shifted. I haven’t felt that from Spare and particularly [our Partner Success Manager] Fenella, I’ve always felt like a priority for her.
Fort Collins, Colorado
Goal
Provide students with effective and reliable options to get home safely from campus through collaboration with the private sector.
Overview
Colorado State University’s RamRide program has seen multiple iterations since launching in 2003. After experiencing steady growth, the safe ride operations moved to being handled by their app as of 2014.
On Fridays and Saturdays, RamRide operates through volunteers between 10:00 PM and 3:00 AM. During this time, students could call in or use their app to request a ride from parties, campus events, or anything else they were getting up to with no judgment or questions asked.
Challenges
- In 2021, students were returning to campus and RamRide needed to be ready to roll out services again, fast.
- Ridership volume wasn’t guaranteed and their transit solution needed to be flexible enough to adapt to the unpredictable demand without overcommitting on fleet size and make up.
- As a program that’s predominantly volunteers, they needed a system that was easy to learn so hand raisers wouldn’t need an intensive training process to get started.
Solution
RamRide maximized the output of their smaller fleet by moving to an on-demand service with software automating the trip planning and connections. Through offering a free RamRide or a discounted Lyft Ride, they flexibly match demand without having to invest too much of their budget into fleet size.
Spare also simplified the job of the driver enabling them to rotate volunteers every week with minimal lift. Instead of training up a volunteer on what to do when, Spare’s app communicates all essential information to drivers to reduce time spent thinking and increase time doing. No complicated procedures or rules to learn, just executing the service.
Results
The RamRide program revamped and relaunched their program—and a whitelabelled app—in a week by working with Spare. In the app, students have the option of booking a ride on a RamRide vehicle completely free or choose to book a Lyft if they want immediate service.
With such a clear, easy-to-use platform, RamRide relies on a new set of volunteers every semester and endure zero problems. They reliably source driving volunteers from student organizations by offering funding to their respective program, a feature riders have loved as they get to chat with a fellow student and learn about campus activities during their trip.
Now, the program is able to accept on average 287 boardings per night with 96% of bookings coming through their app. With Spare’s ability to accept advanced bookings, RamRide noticed students were submitting requests before the program opens at 10:00 PM proving students aren’t just turning to the program in a time of need, but making it their first choice. The experience has proven to be so safe, engaging, and reliable that students continue to depend on it for a late night trip home on weekends.