If you’re stranded in the cold one night this weekend, you can now easily find the location of the Ride vans by texting “Blirpit Wes Ride” to DOTCOM (368266) to access the new Blirp-It Ride GPS service. Within five to seven seconds, Blirp-It will text you the location of the Ride vans or the vans’ distance from any stop. This service, designed and maintained by two University of Vermont students, was unveiled last week after students last year complained about the Ride’s reliability.
“I hope that Blirp-It will make the Ride more efficient,” said Valerie Eldridge ’13. “It’s definitely a memorable name.”
Blirp-It made its debut at the University last Thursday via the joint efforts of the Wesleyan Transportation Services Department and the Wesleyan Student Assembly (WSA) Transportation Committee. The groups began brainstorming ideas for a Ride GPS system in fall 2009. Blirp-It is used for similar campus shuttles at other universities including the University of Vermont, Brandeis University, and Bentley College.
“This was a system that was developed by students for students,” said Wesleyan Transportation Manager Joe Martocci. “The guys from Blirp-It are fun to deal with, they’re very amiable guys.”
Currently, two vans are part of the Blirp-It system, but Martocci believes they could add a third van in the future. He is optimistic that the Transportation Services Department will continue to work with Blirp-It to improve the new service.
“A committee was formed and a lot of time and energy was put towards brainstorming solutions and improvements,” said Zachary Malter ’13, chair of the WSA Transportation Committee. “One of the most popular ideas was to establish some sort of GPS Ride system so that students knew where the Ride was, and they wouldn’t have to wait around ignorant of its location.”
Martocci worked with the WSA Committee to find a GPS system that would meet the University’s needs and would be reasonably priced. Martocci called many surrounding colleges to find out about available systems, but found that many of them were too expensive. One GPS service was installed in one of the vans for a test-run, but it took a minute and a half to relay the GPS information to cell phones, which was too long of a delay time. Then Director of Public Safety (PSafe) Dave Meyer brought Blirp-It to Martocci’s attention.
“They [Martocci and Meyer] reached out to Blirp-It and they came to an agreement and it seemed financially reasonable, so at that point they started to work with them to design it with our Ride system,” Malter said.
Martocci was impressed with Blirp-It’s speed, which he saw as one of the most important features of a GPS system for the Ride.
One of Malter’s biggest priorities was bringing the service to the University as soon as possible.
“During the winter the Ride is very high-trafficked and I didn’t want another winter to go by with students waiting outside for long periods of time,” Malter said. “It’s not only a matter of convenience, it’s also a matter of safety.”
Malter said that the Blirp-It website was already flooded with people accessing it this past weekend, which he believes is an early indicator of the service’s staying power.
“This is not the type of thing where it’ll just be popular the first week and then it will die down,” he said. “It will always be equally as helpful, especially on the weekend when the Ride utilization is at its peak.”
Blirp-It is currently working on creating iPhone applications that would work with the service. But for now the texting service is the easiest way to find out the Ride’s location. Fliers with instructions for texting Blirp-It will be posted near all of the Ride stops and will be handed out in the Ride vans.
To access Blirp-It online, go to wes.blirpit.com.