Unique Alston (left) at USF Connect after Ridely was accepted into their 2024 Student Innovation Incubator.
Photo courtesy of Unique Alston.
By Mahika Kukday
The path to achieving cross-campus transportation at the University of South Florida has been full of roadblocks, but one student at the St. Petersburg campus is clearing the way.
Ridely is a new carpooling app created by Unique Alston, a business analytics senior.
Set to launch in early February, the app will help students find a ride between the three USF campuses.
“The app will ask for your ‘to’ and ‘from’ locations and then it will essentially generate available routes from students who have put their routes on the platform,” Alston explained.
Once a user requests to join a ride, the driver can charge their own rate. The user may negotiate the price or converse with the driver in a chat screen. Drivers will receive ride request notifications – once accepted, payment will be initiated on the user’s side.
Photo courtesy of Unique Alston
If a user doesn’t see anyone already en route to their desired path, they can manually enter their trip details, including timings. Nearby drivers may then accommodate accordingly – for example, if a user requests a pickup location only a short way out a current driver’s path, the driver may choose a different road that allows them to pick the user up on the way.
“Say you have a class every Monday at the same time,” Alston said. “You can also book a recurring ride.”
Users will be charged an additional 15% platform fee on the proposed ride cost.
Safety features include ID verification, a rating and review system and an SOS call button that will dial 911 immediately. The Ridely team can also suspend users who have consistently low ratings or frequent complaints.
Alston’s journey began with her own class schedule. Since starting at USF in 2022, she had to organize rides or expensive Uber trips to her classes at the Tampa campus.
Fall 2024 was the first semester that Alston and her twin, Cherish, had a car for their daily commute.
“We were making the drive anyways, so at first I was just trying to get students to ride with me and cover those expenses,” Alston said. “And then I was like, ‘this could be a business,’ because I’m not the only person that would need something like this.”
The lack of cross-campus transportation has been a longstanding problem at the university.
At a student government townhall at USF St. Petersburg in November 2023, transportation and class registration issues were the most frequently reported complaints.
Previous student government branches at the St. Petersburg campus have attempted to tackle the issue, primarily by putting out a survey that requests students to give their opinions.
However, getting students’ verbal complaints to materialize into survey responses has proved consistently difficult. Without proof of the gravity of the situation, it became tricky to broach the topic with university administration.
The development process for Ridely LLC was also full of hurdles.
The venture was initially set to launch on Oct. 7, 2024, as a rideshare service called Student Taxi Transport, similar to Uber and Lyft.
Photo by Mahika Kukday | The Crow’s Nest
Back then, Alston was accepting applications from students who wanted to be drivers.
But, the costs of delivery insurance – a type of commercial auto coverage for vehicles used by businesses that generate revenue from transporting people – weren’t feasible.
“We were looking at about $16,000 per year per vehicle on our platform, and that is what really drove us to pivot,” Alston said.
After switching to a carpooling business model and consulting an intellectual property lawyer, Alston then found herself facing a possible legal battle over the venture’s name. It was registered as Fyrfly Connections LLC at the time.
“I was looking at a quarter-of-a-million- dollar battle if I stayed with the name Fyrfly, because it’s the name of a budget brand owned by Hertz Car Rental,” Alston said.
Eventually, she settled on Ridely LLC and outsourced the application’s development.
She said her extensive connections at USF, especially through the Muma College of Business, and her previous work at an intellectual property law firm were essential to her success.
While Ridely will currently serve mostly the areas surrounding the three USF campuses, Alston plans to expand to universities across the country.
She is looking for volunteers and marketing interns to join the team. Interested students can contact Alston at theridelyapp@gmail.com.
