Night Ride pilots earlier start time through July

On Monday, April 17, the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Administrative Services began a pilot program that tests an earlier start time for Night Ride, the university’s late-night transportation service. The on-demand, point-to-point service now begins at 10 p.m. each night, which is one hour earlier than its usual 11 p.m. start time.

The pilot grew out of an Undergraduate Student Government initiative to address campus safety concerns.

“USG created the Campus Safety Commission in an effort to collect, communicate and advocate on behalf of student safety needs on campus,“ said Felix Giron, the commission’s director. “Within its many initiatives, we wanted to prioritize the Night Ride to ensure that students feel more comfortable with the service and use it to commute safely when traveling at night on campus.”

The Night Ride pilot is being led by the commission’s deputy director, Veronica Dinh, in collaboration with OVCAS and its transportation staff.

“We appreciate Veronica’s leadership and dedication to ensuring that this initiative is carried out beyond a promise,” Giron said. “The Campus Safety Commission will continue to put in the necessary time and effort to ensure that students and the UIC community feel physically safe when pursuing their academic goals at the University of Illinois Chicago.”

After the first week of the pilot, of the 1,084 riders who used the Night Ride service, approximately 126 riders used it between 10 and 11 p.m. This represents 11.2% of all rides last week. According to Transportation department staff, when asked how they knew about the start time change, many students said they noticed the earlier start time in the TransLoc app when requesting service and adjusted their schedules to take advantage of it.

“We hope that ridership will continue to build during the earlier hour of service requested by USG’s Campus Safety Commission,” Vice Chancellor of Administrative Services John Coronado said. “Through the Night Ride and our Intracampus bus services, we remain committed to ensuring that students and other members of the UIC community have a variety of options when it comes to traveling safely on campus.”

The Night Ride pilot program will continue through July. For more information about the Night Ride and other campus transportation services, please visit transportation.uic.edu.