University of Iowa expands its safety ride service for students and staff

The University of Iowa announced this month it is increasing staffing and expanding boundaries for its “Nite Ride” service, which provides students and staff with free rides in the areas in and around the university between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m.

Nite Ride uses a small bus to transport several people to their desired destinations in turn. Or for a $1 fee, Nite Ride offers direct rides in smaller vehicles.

The program previously has been staffed by part-time student security officers, but the university will now have one full-time security officer dedicated to driving for Nite Ride. Campus Safety also has created a new adopt-a-weekend program in which student organizations can sign up to staff the program with their members for a weekend.

Nite Ride’s boundaries have been expanded to include the GuideLink Center, a mental health crisis center in Iowa City. Anyone using Nite Ride to go to the GuideLink Center will be required to be accompanied by a family member or friend.

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The Gazette spoke with Hayley Bruce, the Campus Safety chief of staff and public information officer, and Geoff Chapin, the security supervisor for Security Services, about Nite Ride and the changes.

Q: How long has the Nite Ride program been operating?

Chapin: “It's been in operation since 2007. It was originally gender specific, for women only. I was one of the first drivers of that service. It was a maxi van, I remember, way back when. We made several significant changes in the last 10 years. In 2016, it became available to all faculty, staff and students. In 2017, we started the students’ security team, who began operating the service. And then in 2018, we created an in-house app to help streamline the request and dispatching of the service. We also added the option of express rides that take users directly to the final destination. The user experience in the app is similar to Uber, Lyft and other ride-share apps.”

Bruce: “Those are the updates that predate the ones we're going to talk about in this conversation, but we've really been trying to meet with students and get their feedback in terms of how we can make the service better.”

Q: Why did you decide to hire a full-time staff member to support Nite Ride?

Bruce: “I think one challenge with our student security officers operating the night ride service is that they're part time, and Nite Ride’s hours are not necessarily the most desirable. The service is from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. So for some students that might be nice because it's obviously the opposite of their class schedule, but for a lot of students that can be challenging. We typically see it peak during those weekend hours, so Thursday evening through Sunday morning, and, again, students want to have a weekend, too. It's been a challenge, especially because student engagement has been down on campus over the last few years, so this is something that's not unique to us. It's really something that universities have been experiencing post COVID. We just don't have quite as many student employees as we had previously and those we do have tend to go for our day shifts and some of our higher-paying assignments.

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“Since this service is critical to campus safety, we worked with our partners on campus to see if we could find a way to fund a full-time position to drive Nite Ride during the peak weekend hours, and that could specifically drive that larger vehicle. The position was made possible by funding from the Division of Student Life Athletics Alcohol Fund. So, proceeds from alcohol sales at athletic events. So we were really pleased that we could work with our partners on campus. We're all focused on student safety and supporting students. It was nice that those funds were made available to us for this position. It aligns with a lot of our strategies.”

Q: Where did the idea come from to bring student organizations into the program?

Bruce: “The student org adopt-a-weekend program is kind of an interesting story. We've been really focused on engaging with students on campus not only to better understand their concerns, but to hear their great ideas. Some folks on our leadership team had a meeting with our student regent, Abby Crow, last spring and they were discussing the issue of staffing Nite Ride with lower student engagement. It was actually Abby that had the great idea to see if we could find a way to engage student organizations in helping us staff those services. Abby was part of a sorority and she spoke up and said that was something that she thought that her sorority sisters would be interested in participating in. Student organizations are often looking for funding opportunities for their events and other initiatives, and we already have a similar model in place for staffing parking lots on football weekends. So, it was pretty simple to set up and we worked with risk management to work out the details to ensure that those who partner with us meet all the university's fleet safety standards.”

Q: How does the training and pay work for participating student organizations?

Chapin: “They come about half an hour before their shift. The assignment is about 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. So they arrive about 30 minutes before the assignment starts and then they’ll be teamed up with some of our more trained, or more familiar with the assignment, students. And then they'll get some training on how to operate the equipment and the run-through of how the assignment works, going through the vehicle, what to check for, and things like that. Then they'll get trained on how to operate the app, how to check for drivers, for requests, for things like that.”

Bruce: “Participating student organizations get paid $20 per hour per driver. So if they staff each day of the weekend with five people they can make approximately $2,500 for three nights of work for the student organization.”

Q: Why did you decide to adjust the boundaries to include the GuideLink Center?

Bruce: “Holistic well-being and success is a key piece of the university's strategic plan, and one issue we frequently work with our partners across campus on is that of mental health. Adding GuideLink as a drop-off location was really about increasing access to mental health services in our community and for our students and employees. Many students, especially first-year students, don't have a car on campus and transportation can really be a huge barrier for them in terms of getting the support they need, especially if they're in crisis and can't wait a day, or two days, or a week for an appointment with a counselor.”

Q: Where are Nite Ride services most frequently used?

Bruce: “I think our most common pickup areas are residence halls, academic buildings, the main Library and downtown. We're digging into our data a little bit more and we're still just trying to get the word out about the GuideLink drop off location. So, I think that's something to keep an eye on and definitely be looking at and evaluating in terms of how much it is getting used. We don't have great data on that just yet, but we expect that it will go up as more people learn about it.”

Comments: (319) 398-8328; emily.andersen@thegazette.com