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In order to encourage you to use carpooling or public transportation to commute to and from Brown, Brown University has established a Guaranteed Ride Home Program in conjunction with RIPTA. A guaranteed ride home is provided by a taxi.

All Guaranteed Rides Home are subject to availability of public transport - please remember that taxis and even RIPTA shut down for safety reasons during inclement weather. Neither Brown nor RIPTA can offer a guaranteed ride home under these circumstances. Keep an eye on the weather and plan accordingly. If the rest of your carpool is leaving early because of bad weather, you should probably go home also!

Carpool Members

Members of carpools registered with RIPTA's Express Travel program may avail themselves of RIPTA's guaranteed ride home program. Students are not eligible to be Brown carpool members.

To use RIPTA Guaranteed Ride Home:

• Register with RIPTA Express Travel
• Form a carpool. You can do this through your personal grapevine, through the Transportation Office's online Ride Board (Brown authentication/sign in required),  or through RIPTA's AlterNet service, which will help you to find people in your area - Brown employees or otherwise - who are interested in carpooling. (Bear in mind that non-Brown employees may not form a formal part of a Brown carpool, but if you want to include a non-Brown member in your Brown carpool and do the bookkeeping yourself, that's fine. However, there must be at least two unrelated Brown employees in the carpool to qualify as a carpool for Brown's purposes. See "Carpooling" )
• Get your fellow carpoolers to register with RIPTA Express Travel if they haven't already registered
• Register the carpool with RIPTA (the name, home address, telephone, and destination of each person in your pool)
• Send the information to

Express Travel
Rhode island Public Transit Authority
265 Melrose St
Providence, RI 02907
Attn: Peter Michaud

or email it to

pmichaud@ripta.com

• RIPTA will then send you a Guaranteed Ride Home Card with an identification number and a phone number to call should you need a ride home.
• When you call that number, Express Travel will ask you what your current location and destination are, and will call a cab to pick you up and take you home. You may make one stop to pick a child or parent at daycare or school on your way home.

You may use the RIPTA guaranteed ride home twice a year. Rides to which you are entitled may not be carried over from one year to the next.

Bus Riders

If

• you are a Brown employee, graduate student, medical student or commuting undergraduate student
• you live within a radius of 50 miles from Brown
• your point of origin for the ride is a Brown address

you are eligible for the Guaranteed Ride Home program on the days that you take the bus to Brown.

You may use a Bus Rider's Guaranteed Ride Home

• To handle a personal emergency between 8 am and 4:45 pm. You may travel to your home or a hospital, making one stop on the way to pick up a child or parent at a daycare center or school.
• To travel to your home after regular work hours if
  • you are required by your supervisor to work late and
  • you do not live in the safeRIDE onCall coverage area or on one of the safeRIDE evening shuttle routes (see www.brown.edu/saferide/system.html ), and
  • your regular RIPTA bus will have stopped running for the day when you will be leaving work.

Your supervisor must make the call requesting the ride for you.

• If you are a bus rider, you must call during Transportation Office hours (8:00 am to 4:45 pm) to request a ride home. If your supervisor is unable to anticipate and communicate to you and to the Transportation Office the need for the ride home before the Transportation Office closes, then we advise you to take a taxi home, request a fully filled-out receipt which indicates the date, the time, the pickup location and the dropoff location in full, and submit the original to the Transportation Office with a letter, signed by you and your supervisor, explaining why you needed the ride home and requesting reimbursement. If the Transportation Office recognizes your reason as falling within the eligibility criteria of the program, you will be reimbursed for the ride.

To use the service:

• Call the Transportation Office at 863-3157
• Ask for a Guaranteed Ride Home and give your Brown ID Number
• State your point of origin and your destination
• State when you will need the ride
• The Transportation Office will then call a cab company and arrange for the ride.