Anna Huang
Christina Norair
Title: 8RIDES Online at
Motive and Explanation:
Improving P-Rides Through Online Tracking
P-Rides currently provides Princeton students a safe and efficient mode of travel at night between the hours of 6pm and 2am. See (
Students call 8-ride from any Princeton campus phone and speak with a representative from the command center. Students state their location and destination, which the command center representative sends along to the actual driver via walkie talkie. Students then wait for the van to pick them up. Students currently, however, have no reliable way of estimating wait time. From personal experience, we’ve called and been told to wait five minutes but ended up waiting 30 minutes for a ride.
Our service builds off of P-Rides and provides a website where its command center members and students can view and enter their requests. The website would have a drag down menu of predetermined pick up and drop off locations. The student could submit his/her request (pickup location, drop off location, number of people) to view the estimated wait time. If the wait time is acceptable, the student then presses submit and waits for P-Rides to pick them up. If unacceptable, the student will cancel his/her request and walk. The command center would be able to view the latest queues and then call the driver. In turn, the driver would call the command center when a route is completed, so the center removes it from the queue.
Our Enterprise will begin with Orange and Blue Line pick up locations and may expand later to Green Line stops (mostly Grad Student locations).
Our service improves the current system not only by giving more accurate waiting time, but also allows computer input. Students often have easier access to computer than cell phones due to service problems. However, the old method could still function via phone, meaning the command center would enter the queue rather than the student.
Tasks to accomplish:
-Come up with a list of pick up/ drop off locations. Examples: Friend Center/Equad (Olden Lane), Frist (by servery/ McCosh Health Center), Ustore, Forbes, GradCollege, Scully/Carl Ichan, Fine Hall Cross Walk, Palmer Square, Lot 23, Wilson parking lot (patton/walker), Robertson Hall, BoatHouse, Elm Drive Guard Booth, Baker Rink, Elm Drive at West College, Firestone, Dillon.
-Have fun in my car timing how long it takes to get to and from each point…
-create the website, which includes:
-login using netid and password
-user information html form
-another form showing the queue of previous travel requests and estimated times
-javascript function onSubmit type for the user to verify if he actually wants to submit the request.
-the Prides command center will be able to remove routes from the queue upon completion, meaning they have more permissions than students who can access the website.
-if the student user logs on again, s/he can remove her request. (that is, the site will track who submitted the request but will not reveal this information to the public).
THE LATEST
In addition to our initial plans, we will create a website that uses google maps and GPX (XML format for interchange of GPS data) that shows live animation tracking the P-Rides vehicle.
We found sample code online in javascript and xml can follow the format.
How We’re Splitting up Tasks:
As there are only two of us, we plan on collaborating closely and doing it all together.