This document discusses a case study of Zimride, a carpooling service, at UCLA. It outlines the history of carpooling at UCLA, how Zimride's approach uses online ridematching and social networking features like Facebook popular with students, and some key metrics from UCLA's partnership with Zimride including over 2,600 active users gained in six months. The partnership helped UCLA make progress toward its goals of reducing solo driving and converting commuters to carpooling.
12. Zimride at UCLA Why did we work with Zimride? Online ridematching meets social networking In this case, it was Facebook, which is very popular at UCLA Zimride has provided UCLA with Online ridematching Marketing support
Good morning. My name isSirinyaTritipeskul and I am with UCLA Transportation’s Planning and Policy Group. In this presentation, we will be presenting a case study on the results of UCLA Transportation and Zimride’s joint efforts to market Zimride, an online social network for ridesharing, on the UCLA campus. This morning, I will be speaking with the founding members of Zimride, Logan Green and John Zimmer, along with the Zimride’s Vice President of Marketing, Tessa Petrich.
In this presentation, we will first talk about why UCLA is working so hard to encourage carpooling as a sustainable mode of transportation on campus. Next, we will talk about Zimride’s approach to promoting carpool. Finally, we will talk about the results of our joint marketing efforts and how we created a successful TDM marketing strategy at UCLA.
UCLA Transportation is working hard to encourage carpool because it has the potential to be the most cost-effective and efficient TDM program. As the slide behind me illustrates, carpool has the lowest costper trip. Carpool also utilizes preexisting infrastructure and has the potential to increasemorale & productivity as well as reduce absenteeism.
Encouraging carpooling is so important that it is reflected in the University’s policy goals. The drive alone rate at UCLA is presently 57%. UCLA’s Climate Action Plan cites the goal of reducing the drive alone rate to 50% by the year 2014. Additionally the Climate Action Plan cites the goal of converting 80 drive-alone commuters to carpool by the year 2014.
UCLA Transportation is working on many approaches for promoting and encouraging carpool. One idea our department has worked with is the Commuter Café, which has been our high-touch, “origin-based” approach. We invited commuters from the South Bay and the San Fernando Valley to come together in an informal setting to form carpools. We also provided these commuters with incentives to form carpools. They included a parking rebate if they carpooled for six months; registration in Metro’s Guaranteed Ride Home program; and registration in our Ride Card program, which gives participants a $3 daily discount on parking should they need to drive to work occasionally. So how did it go? UCLA Transportation found it took a lot of collaboration and cooperation from many people in our department. The turnout was low, which underscored the importance of establishing critical mass on UCLA’s existing online ridematching sites, which led to our next program: