With gas prices hovering just under three dollars a gallon, drivers are looking for any way to cut the costs of their commute.
TuftsLife.com has a ride board feature, which lets students request or offer rides from Tufts to any city. A new national Web site, RideCheck.com, launched in March, gives students another option when looking for a way to get home.
RideCheck lets people find and offer rides in the U.S. and Canada. RideCheck CEO Clyde Mitchell said between 5,000 and 10,000 rides have been posted since the site began.
The Web site recently doubled its server capacity to handle up to 50,000 ride postings per day. "We got a lot of use over the summer, and so we wanted to expand," Mitchell said.
A search Sunday showed no rides offered during the next three months between Boston, New York City and Washington, D.C., or between Los Angeles and San Francisco. There were 11 rides available each way between Toronto and Montreal.
He said college students make up the majority of the site's postings. "They're more Internet savvy," he said. "They're probably more interested in saving money than the general population." Mitchell said he expects retirees to use the site in the future.
The TuftsLife.com ride board - begun in 2002 and for use by Tufts students only - does not track the number of postings, according to senior Rajit Kapur, the site's chief relations officer. Six students are now requesting rides on TuftsLife.com, but there are no students offering rides.
Neither RideCheck or the TuftsLife.com ride board charge people to post ride offers or requests.
RideCheck requires users to register to see posting details and make posts. There is a section on the registration form specifically for college students.
"If we do start charging, it'll be on the order of $2 or so," Mitchell said.
RideCheck recommends the driver and passenger split the cost of gas and tolls.
TuftsLife.com does not expect to add a fee. "There are no plans to charge for Ride Board services," Kapur said.
The RideCheck postings are more detailed than those on TuftsLife.com.
RideCheck lets users rate drivers and passengers, and the site has a feature to continuously search for rides to a certain destination. Prospective passengers can also search for female or male drivers.
"You can search for same-sex rides, as a woman might be uncomfortable going with a guy," Mitchell said.
The only information on the TuftsLife.com ride board is the person's name, contact information and destination. All of the posted rides on TuftsLife.com are displayed on the main page, so prospective drivers and passengers can see the person's gender.
TuftsLife.com does not plan to expand the ride board, Kapur said. He said there is no competition with RideCheck. "If they can offer a better solution than we can, then that helps everyone."
RideCheck is also more detailed in its warnings to prospective drivers and passengers and in its terms of service. According to the Web site, criminals can take advantage of the service.
"We urge people to meet before they go on the trip, to confirm their license information, and even to take a digital picture [of the other person]," Mitchell said. He suggested sending the person's picture and information to friends as a safety check.
If the site's warnings are followed, he said, riders and passengers will be less anonymous. "I think this is far safer than getting on a bus, or far safer than the bathroom at a bus terminal, because of all the witnesses," Mitchell said.
TuftsLife.com's ride board only includes the warning: "TuftsLife.com strongly encourages the use of good judgement (sic) when offering rides to or accepting rides from others."
Daniel Moscoe, a philosophy graduate student, requested a ride to Rochester, N.Y. for Thanksgiving on TuftsLife.com's ride board earlier this year, but he did not get a response. "I actually ended up buying a plane ticket," he said.
Freshman Jessica Snow said she found the TuftsLife.com ride board while she was browsing the Web site. She posted that she was looking for a ride to northern Virginia over winter break.
"I posted just to see if I could get something, but if I don't it won't be the end of the world - I'll just buy a plane ticket," she said.
Neither Moscoe nor Snow said they had heard of RideCheck.com.
Mitchell created RideCheck.com from his experiences as an undergraduate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1970s, when he used the school's ride board - a plywood plank where students posted their ride offers and requests. "This takes that concept and adds security and convenience," he said.
Mitchell said that since students at any school can use RideCheck, it increases the odds they will find a ride. "If someone is going from Tufts to New Jersey once a week, maybe someone from M.I.T., Harvard or B.U. is going, too," he said.
