Ride-hailing service RubyRide adding Sto-Rox pilot to South Hills testing
A new ride-hailing service already operating in the South Hills is eyeing a second test area in Pittsburgh’s suburbs.
RubyRide has a pilot program that launched in the Clairton area in late October and will be starting a second pilot Feb. 1 in areas that make up the Sto-Rox School District.
The company charges a monthly fee for as many rides as you’d like and pays its drivers as waged workers instead of gig economy contractors. It draws its funding from several sources including local businesses, organizations, and even employers.
“Our goal is to provide all of the freedom that you have with a car in the driveway without having to have a car in the driveway,” said Jeff Ericson, the company’s CEO and founder.
The company takes its name from Dorothy’s magic ruby slippers from the film “The Wizard of Oz.”
The pilot program in Sto-Rox is led by the McKees Rocks Community Development Corporation and funded by a $75,000 grant from the Mary Hillman Jennings Foundation and a $20,000 grant from the PNC Foundation, according to the company. In Jefferson and Clairton, the pilot is led by Economic Development South and funded by a $120,000 grant from the Jefferson Regional Foundation, the company said.
The pilot in Clairton currently has 19 part-time drivers and 50 users, though they are planning to add more from their waiting list soon. The Sto-Rox pilot has already hired 10 drivers and signed on 25 users. The company’s goal is to have 10 service areas in Pittsburgh in 2020.
Taris Vrcek, the executive director of the Mckees Rocks Community Development Corporation, sees RubyRide as an answer to a longstanding problem for the region.
“We have known and struggled with the transportation barrier that exists in this community for years, and we’ve known that the effects are widespread,” he said. “Everything from our residents being able to get to necessary medical appointments, to missed opportunities for training and employment, because they’re unable to get from point A to point B.”
The pilot will initially offer five organizational memberships to employers who want to enlist reliable transportation for their workers or to school districts that could offer memberships to families for daily trips, Vrcek said.
Kyrese Davis, a RubyRide user in the pilot program in Clairton, mostly uses the service to get to school, work and the grocery store. He’s attending college at California University of Pennsylvania and works in the nearby shopping center.
Before RubyRide, Davis was mostly taking the bus to get around. Some days it was clear to Davis that the bus wouldn’t get him to work on time. Relying on the bus was “like rolling the dice,” he said.
“I couldn’t be late to work, so I’d have to call up an Uber,” he said.
Those rides would usually cost him anywhere from $10 to $15 and would start to add up. As a RubyRide beta-tester, Davis pays $20 per month for unlimited rides. He says that, at this point in his life, RubyRide is an easy alternative to buying a car.
“With a car you have to pay for insurance, inspection if it doesn’t have one, and other car utilities along with gas, so it ends up totaling more,” he said.
RubyRide has been in the works since 2014, Ericson said.
Ericson said that RubyRide spent much of 2018 quietly working on the service before it was to be released to the public. A similar pilot program has been running in North Mankato, Minnesota, since July 2019. In North Mankato, RubyRide has an exclusive partnership with the municipality, functioning as the town’s main public transportation system, instead of the community relying on buses.
“So instead of having a bus, they use us as kind of a municipal Uber. And so the passengers there pay $4 a trip, and then the city covers the rest,” Ericson said. “But that can also be turned into a subsidy, you know, under our subscription as well. It’s backed by the city’s contract.”
Sherri Dadey has been driving for RubyRide on nights and weekends since October. In addition to being one of RubyRide’s drivers for the Clairton area, Dadey is also a full-time real estate assessor for Allegheny County.
A former Uber driver, Dadey found out about the RubyRide pilot program from her local Lions Club. Dadey drove for Uber in 2016 for only a few months, eventually deciding that it wasn’t for her. Unlike Uber, Dadey and her fellow RubyRide drivers are waged workers, instead of gig economy contractors. Also, RubyRide tries to hire drivers who live close to their service areas, that way they’ll always be close to home.
Dadey said that most of her riders are either younger people, such as students, or older folks who have trouble getting around the area.
Users are able to hitch a ride through the RubyRide app or, for the less tech-savvy, they can also call RubyRide’s customer line to have a ride dispatched.
“The South Hills is like a transportation void, and between PAT bus and Uber, these people are like falling in the cracks,” she said. “So, RubyRide kind of fills the cracks between the Port Authority and Uber.”
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