Late Saturday night, freshmen Emily Gordon, Hannah Perkins and Crystal Le hopped onto the IU Night Owl bus on their way to a friend’s house near the football stadium.
A crowd of about 15 students huddled in the back of the bus, laughing. One student was already eating leftovers out of a styrofoam box he carried out of a restaurant.
The Night Owl bus is just one of the ways students get home at night when they can’t safely walk or drive. Some take advantage of services run by IU, like the Night Owl or IU Safety Escort. Others use Uber. This year, a small group of students on campus has been developing another option for students who find themselves out late without a ride home.
After freshman Josh Mayer put an ad in IU Classifieds, junior Chris Podlaski, senior Benjamin Anigbo and senior Ja’Von Hankins joined him to create SPUZ, a rideshare service for students to pick up other students on campus.
“We really think this can bring a lot of value to campus to keep people safe,” Anigbo said. “Ridesharing has gotten pretty popular, but nobody else has captured the specific market of a student population like we’re trying to.”
With the creation of SPUZ, they intended to provide a safer alternative to rideshare services like Uber without the delayed wait time of a bus, Hankins said.
“If it’s limited to students on campus, you’re more likely to know the person or have seen the person who’s driving you,” Hankins said. “And even if it’s someone you don’t know, you know they’re part of the IU community and you can feel more comfortable getting to know them. It’s not some stranger from Indianapolis driving down to do this.”
Because SPUZ will be run as a business, rather than a free service, there is a greater opportunity for expansion, Podlaski said.
This also means students will have to pay to use SPUZ. IU’s Night Owl bus, which runs from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. on the weekends, is free for students.
“If there’s free transportation available, that’s what I’m going to use,” Gordon said on the Saturday Night Owl bus. “Maybe I have to plan a little better or wait for it to get here, but I’m a college student. I only have so much money to spend just trying to get from one place to another.”
IU Safety Escort is another free option for students looking to get home. Safety Escort takes students home from campus or their place of work for free. They currently give rides to about 70 to 100 students every night, said Carter Myers, IU Safety Escort associate director.
“I think a lot of our riders are perfectly aware of services like Uber,” Myers said. “But in terms of safety, I think maybe they feel better with a campus organization like us.”
The students behind SPUZ are currently working through the legal and insurance regulations of their endeavor. They plan to launch the student rideshare program next school year.
“We want to believe we can make an impact on our campus,” Anigbo said. “But more than that, we want our friends and other students to have a safe way to get around. We believe there’s a need for that.”
