TapRide, a service provided through OU transportation, will take riders anywhere on campus late at night.
Instead of walking on campus alone in the cold, Haley Krause called a driver and kept warm on the way home. Her fare? $0.
Krause, a sophomore studying nursing, used TapRide, a free service provided through Ohio University transportation, to get around campus, but not off-campus.
“It’s really reliable and safe,” Krause said.
At the beginning of Fall Semester, TapRide replaced SAFE-T Patrol, which paid students to walk others home at night.
“It is very beneficial because it’s given so many people rides that needed rides or they couldn’t get around physically because it was too cold or it was too late at night,” said Zach Daniels, a driver at TapRide and student at Hocking College.
About 60 OU students work for the university’s transportation department. Some of them are TapRide drivers; others operate CATS, CATCAB and various university shuttle services.
The hours of operation are Monday through Saturday from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.
“On an average night we have anywhere from 15 to 20 calls, which means about 35 to 40 riders,” Daniels said.
The number of calls increases on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, Daniels said.
Krause first learned about the service when she looked at the back of one of her friends’ student ID. The TapRide service is now featured on the back of new student IDs in place of SAFE-T Patrol. It reads: “a phone call is all you need to ensure a safe walk home.”
Typically, there are two people on staff each night. One person in the office takes the calls and schedules riders while the other person drives and picks them up, Daniels said.
Daniels said part of the reason he took the job at TapRide was to meet more people.
“You can kind of talk and get to visit with them, and it’s really fun,” Daniels said.
When a student calls the TapRide service, the workers put the rider into the spreadsheet to ensure that the driver knows exactly where to pick up the rider. The worker also gives the rider an estimated pickup time.
A Post reporter took the TapRide service Tuesday from James Hall on West Green to Alden Library at 10:10 p.m. The driver told the reporter he would arrive in 25 minutes. The driver arrived in 48 minutes.
The time it takes to pick up riders depends where the rider is and if there are other people scheduled, Daniels said.
Marcy Driehaus, a freshman studying journalism, has called TapRide before, but decided against using it when she was told it was a 20-minute wait.
Driehaus wanted to use the service to get to her friend’s dorm and avoid walking in the cold.
But Driehaus said she thinks the service is a good thing. She first heard about it from a friend who uses TapRide on the weekends to get from Court Street to her dorm.
“I might call the number again,” Driehaus said.
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