MU has replaced the temporary MO-X shuttle service with Uber vouchers designed to keep students safer going to and from campus parking lots.
MU students with a parking pass will now receive two Uber vouchers per day that will take them to or from their designated parking lot, which began on Oct. 23. These vouchers have been implemented due to the discontinuation of MO-X’s partnership with the university.
Replacing the MO-X shuttle, students can now call an Uber to pick them up or drop them off anywhere on campus, as long as the ride either starts or ends at their designated parking lot. According to MU Parking and Transportation, this service is available from 8 p.m. until midnight every day of the week. Students will be able to use two vouchers a day which are not transferable or equivalent to any cash value. A voucher is only good for a single rider, and students can be picked up or dropped off at lots AV14A, AV14B, SG4, SG5 and RP10, depending on their assigned parking pass.
According to MU News Bureau Director Chistian Basi, the Uber voucher service will end for the fall semester on Dec. 16. Basi said he anticipates the Uber service continuing into next semester and potentially into future years as well.
Basi said in the first week of use, approximately 159 students utilized the service. With the Uber partnership, the university is charged per ride rather than paying a fixed rate for the shuttle, which is expected to save the university about $3000 per week. Basi said that the university’s partnership with Uber is a safe option.
MO-X — the university’s now former shuttle servicer — partnered with MU to provide students with complementary rides from the Student Center to the perimeter parking lots approximately every 20 minutes, according to MU parking. According to Basi, after the city of Columbia informed MU they would be unavailable to provide [their] shuttle service between 8 p.m. and midnight MO-X was temporarily contracted to take its place. The MO-X shuttle was only a temporary solution while the university continued to look for a sustainable way to keep students safe when traveling home at night.
“The students can be picked up near their residence hall, or nearby, and they’re taken directly to their car, there’s less walking time that they have to be concerned about,” Basi said.
Instead of having to find drivers for the shuttle service, an Uber driver can pick up students. Basi said these drivers have gone through a multi-step safety screening and will be re-evaluated every year.
Edited by Sam Barrett | sbarrett@themaneater.com
Copy edited by Sterling Sewell | ssewell@themaneater.com
Edited by Sophie Rentschler | srentschler@themaneater.com