September 12, 2011

Wayne State launches social network for ridesharing

Partnership with Zimride creates platform to enhance campus mobility

Wayne State University today announced a partnership with Zimride to launch a social network for ridesharing. The Zimride platform uses Facebook integration to help users find friends for sharing commutes or one-time rides.

"The Student Senate elected to bring Zimride to Wayne State to provide a secured ride sharing program that helps fellows students, faculty and staff," said David Strauss, dean of students. "By using Zimride, the WSU community will help the environment with fewer cars on the road and also save money on fuel and parking."

Zimride has developed a custom rideshare solution to serve WSU's campus population. As a social network platform with optional Facebook integration, Zimride is fun to use and helps establish trust among users. Just like with Facebook, Zimriders can view profiles for common networks, interests and friends before deciding to share a ride.

"This new transportation alternative is an engaging, easy and sustainable way for everyone to collectively make a difference," Strauss said.

All students, faculty and staff can access the free Wayne State Zimride network at http://zimride.wayne.edu. The private system requires an @wayne.edu email address to gain access.

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Wayne State University is a premier urban research institution offering more than 400 academic programs through 13 schools and colleges to nearly 32,000 students.

Zimride is the largest online social rideshare community in North America with more than 350,000 users. Zimride has implemented private rideshare communities for more than 80 of the nation's leading universities and companies including Stanford, UCLA, University of Michigan, Cornell University, Jet Blue and CIGNA.

Zimride embraces ridesharing as a social activity and integrates with Facebook and Twitter to make it fun and easy for users to share the seats in their car or find a ride. On Zimride, participants create profiles that show their favorite in-car music, radio stations and even smoking preferences to ensure an enjoyable ride. For more information, visit http://www.zimride.com.