New pedicab company to provide competition

After its absence during Winter Session, College Taxi, the student-run pedicab service founded last fall, is back in operation but facing new competition with Newark’s newest pedicab company, URide.

College Taxi, currently a gratuity-only transportation service, hopes to retain its clientele from the Fall Semester when it first opened. Junior and founder Ross Sylvester said the company is considering shifting to a zone-based fee system, but no official plans have been made.

Sylvester said he regretted College Taxi’s Winter Session absence.

“I’d definitely say that I did make a mistake. I would’ve liked to be out during winter,” Sylvester said. “I had the feeling that people weren’t going to want to do it. From my standpoint, I think we could’ve gotten some business.”

He said the weather and the small population of students on campus during Winter Session deterred his company from operating at this time, but College Taxi will stay in operation Winter Session 2011.

College Taxi’s operations were halted by the snow during the first weeks of Spring Semester and this past weekend was their first full-service weekend.

Also a part of the pedicab industry in Newark is GreenRides, an non-student-run pedicab business. Started in September, Greenrides is a gratuity-based service.

GreenRides co-founder Sean Hague, an electrician, said his company will not change its business model despite the increased competition, and that there is no animosity between the three companies.

 “We’re not really concerned,” Hague said . “We’ve all talked about it and we all decided not to change the way we’re doing things. We wish URide [and College Taxi] goodluck. We hope they do well. We just want to keep it friendly. We don’t want any hard feelings.” 

But, Sylvester and his crew of 10 drivers will face competition from URide, another student-run pedicab service, which opened for business this month.

URide founder and university alum ’09 Yuval De-Medonsa said he is looking forward to servicing the university. De-Medonsa said one of the biggest differences between his business and College Taxi is the pedicabs themselves. URide will have enclosed, weather-protective passenger seats, and College Taxi has open-air passenger pedicabs.

URide also has a slightly different business model than that of College Taxi. College Taxi currently runs solely on gratuity, and URide charges a flat fee of $5 for any ride around campus. College Taxi is a cash-only business. URide accepts cash as well ascredit or debit cards on site.

Sophomore Taryn Dasilva said she has not used a pedicab service yet this spring, but she hopes to soon.

“If [students] really need to get to where they want to go, it’s a good resort,” Dasilva said.

She said the College Taxi driver she had was very personal and made the transportation experience enjoyable.

Sylvester said he welcomes competition from URide and feels assured that he will retain his customers.

“College Taxi has been on the streets on Friday night. College Taxi will be on the streets on Friday night,” he said. “If you want a ride and you want someone to be there, you’re going to know that we’re going to be on the streets. Can you say that about everybody? I don’t know.”

De-Medonsa and Sylvester both said their respective business models will prevail.

“It’s a tough business to run,” Sylvester said. “I wish them luck. It’s going to be a tough road ahead.”

 

• Facebook Comments
• Site Comments

Be the first to comment on this article!

Add comment


I am not posting spam. I understand posting spam or other comments that are unrelated to this article will cause my comment to be flagged for deletion and possibly cause my IP address to be permanently banned from this server.

Enter the characters in the image above:

log out