The week earlier than each break, the phrase “$65?!” echoes throughout campus.
While students journey to totally different locations over break, most have one factor in frequent — shock over the journey prices of Uber or Lyft rides to the airport. The rides, which might whole over $130 to get to and from the airport, symbolize a monetary hardship and inconvenience for a lot of students. From varied dorm group chats to determined Fizz posts, students have tried all the things to decrease the price of airport journey.
To assist handle students’ rideshare affordability issues, Aditya Saligrama ‘24, Gashon Hussein ‘25 and Stanley Rozenblit ‘25 independently created rideshare web sites that have been launched throughout the week of Feb. 14. Although every web site permits customers to enter their flight data and get matched with attainable carpoolers, they’ve distinctive options and processes that set them aside.
When Saligrama started planning his journey dwelling for winter break, he mentioned he couldn’t imagine the exorbitant costs of Ubers and Lyfts to the airport. To lower the journey value, he created spreadsheets for students to coordinate rides. However, he sought an improved course of and created Caravaner because the optimum ridesharing web site, in accordance with him.
Caravaner is much less about Saligrama’s ambitions as a software program developer and extra about how he can greatest assist the actual wants of students, he mentioned. Under his design, there isn’t a wait time for customers — as quickly as customers enter their flight data, they’ll instantly coordinate ridesharing plans. Users’ flight and call data additionally stay hidden till a ridesharing group is finalized, he added. Saligrama expects to launch extra options in coming weeks.
Similarly, Hussein was impressed to create his personal rideshare platform after utilizing spreadsheets, resembling Saligrama’s, to coordinate carpooling for winter break. Finding these spreadsheets to be “tedious and unrefined for both parties,” he created RideShare as an answer for Stanford students dealing with comparable issues.
After spending months creating the web site, Hussein held off on releasing it so as to add extra options, resembling user-authentication and in-app messaging. To create a RideShare account, students enter their Stanford e mail handle into the web site, the place it’s then validated by means of Stanford’s public database for safety functions. Additionally, with the in-app messaging characteristic, students can chat and additional take a look at their ridesharing compatibility earlier than utilizing different communication mediums. Hussein added that he welcomes any suggestions with hopes of future enlargement.
The third ride-matching web site was created by Rozenblit, Johan Sotelo ’25 and one other undergraduate pupil who requested anonymity for worry of public backlash. Rozenblit managed varied ride-matching Google Forms that circulated forward of the final two breaks and arranged matches for over 1,200 students. He and his co-founders later created Cruiser as a step up from the handbook Google Forms.
Cruiser’s present options embrace departure location, time choice, versatile matching and a “unique predictive algorithm” that compares consumer entries with entries throughout campus, Rozenblit mentioned.
Rozenblit additionally shared plans for future options, together with in-app messaging and a risk for customers to journey to locations aside from the airport, resembling Trader Joe’s and live performance venues. Rozenblit emphasised that he’s receptive to suggestions for the web site.
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Alex Chon ‘25 and Collin Pang ‘25, customers of the beforehand provided trip matching providers and potential shoppers of those three web sites, agreed that the in-app chatting characteristic is among the many most vital options of the web sites. However, they imagine the providers can be stronger in the event that they joined forces.
“In the end, it would be better if there was only one website because as of right now, the user bases are divided, which only hurts all three websites,” Chon mentioned.
Regardless, Chon and Pang predicted that potential customers must skim the three web sites and resolve for themselves which they imagine will ridematch them most safely and conveniently.
While some disagree with the separation of platforms, Hussein believes that the plurality of ridematching providers at Stanford is a constructive feat. The arrival of a number of platforms exhibits “there was a big gap that needed to be filled, and in the end, competition is a driver of further innovation,” he mentioned.