Currently, RamRide has an average wait time of 41.5 minutes. In the coming weeks, that average wait time may decrease.
“We’re going to be implementing a new dispatch system,” said Chelsey Green, executive director of RamRide. “That will cut that wait time down significantly.”
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RamRide is celebrating its 10 year anniversary at CSU. A part of the celebration is the inclusion of a new dispatch system accompanied by a mobile app available for the Apple and Android market.
Students with the downloaded app will be able to send in their information via the app to RamRide. Once the information is received by RamRide it will disperse the information to a tablet located in each car. Based on GPS location provided by each tablet, the closest car will receive the student’s location and will be sent to pick them up, instead of the current system where cars are given assignments based on when the call comes in.
Currently, RamRide has provided 2,471 rides this semester. RamRide recorded 2,396 rides with an average wait time of 40.5 minutes last semester, according to Green.
The mobile app is being created to address the issue of a long wait time and the abundance of calls received in the later hours of Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.
”We stopped taking calls at 3 a.m., but there were a lot of people who called in from the hours of 1:30 a.m. till 3 a.m.,” said Becky Peters, RamRide volunteer. “A lot of people got backed up.”
The amount of calls throughout the later hours causes a line.
“Sometimes, we get a huge flow of calls, we’ll have a 50 line waitlist,” Green said.
Due to the amount of calls that RamRide receives, some students feel they are being ignored.
“We called RamRide two or three times and they just didn’t call us back,” said Jordan Walser, junior business major.
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This forced Walser to walk home, nearly three miles away from his location.
The problem comes from the amount of calls that come in.
“We’re getting more calls then we can give rides to (on) some nights,” Green said. “We have the busiest call automated distributor on campus even compared to admissions or the student financial aid office.”
The new dispatch system and mobile app will fix this issue.
“Students will be able to download an app and request rides off the app, so it cuts back on them having to talk on the phone and the dispatch system automatically assigns rides to a tablet which is in each car, according to GPS locations and coordinates,” Green said. “It’s going to make RamRide much more efficient and cut down on wait times drastically.”
Tablets are not a new addition to the cars. The tablets have been in use by RamRide for awhile now.
“We had a slight mishap with our tablet, but those are a great addition to the whole program, I think it makes everything work better,” Peters said.
Peters volunteered with a group from the admissions staff. If a group can rally together 30 or more volunteers, RamRide will compensate the organization with $1,000.
“That breaks down to $33 a person, usually, we only pay people $10 a person,” Green said.
Many students already take advantage of RamRide’s service. RamRide has provided 200,000 rides to students in its 10 year tenure and plans to provide many more with the launch of their new app.
Collegian Senior Reporter Lawrence Lam can be reached at news@collegian.com.
