Launched in eleven Minneapolis suburbs this month, Get Home Free is a flat rate, prepaid cab card that gets its holder home safely. Mainly targeted at teenagers and college students, the concept's initiators are aiming to help out kids who are stuck with car trouble, have been drinking, or whose ride home has fallen through. Cardholders place a call to the Get Home Free hotline, and a car is immediately dispatched to bring them home, no questions asked.
Teen drinking and driving is a serious issue. As reported in the Star Tribune: "According to the 2004 Minnesota Student Survey, 28 percent of high school seniors reported having driven after using alcohol or drugs at least once in the previous year. Also, almost 40 percent of seniors reported that they had ridden with someone who had been using substances." Having a Get Home Free card as an emergency back-up should help keep some of them off the road.
Cards can be purchased online for USD 64.99 and are valid throughout the Twin Cities metro area, with statewide expansion to all key cities in Minnesota planned for 2008, and to high school and college campuses in all 50 states by 2010. In order to offer the service 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, Get Home Free has partnered with Airport Taxi and Town Taxi, Minnesota's largest fleet of taxis with over 300 vehicles. To spread the word, Get Home Free will give away one card every month to a random MySpace friend. Useful and straightforward, this is one to start up locally. (Related: Cabs for and by women.)
Website: www.gethomefree.com — www.myspace.com/gethomefree
Contact: generalhelp@gethomefree.com
Spotted by: Ozgur Alaz
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It sounds like a great solutions for the teens. But what about the tips for the cab drivers? Do they receive anything if the client has a voucher?
What a great site! Thanks for featuring us here. To address the first few comments :
The program we have established is adventageous to the cab drivers. The program is profitable for them, and we operate on a GPS dispatch program. The drivers get paid well, and 100% secure. Our drivers not only will not refuse the cards, but prefer these routes for several reasons.
Also, we have factored the tip into the driver compensation. It's actually BETTER than a standard fare, as the tip is factored already!
Please email me at dave@gethomefree.com with any additional questions, and THANK YOU to the owners of this web site for the chance to feature the business here.
Travel/Tourism as many ideas as possible
Heres a ladies only prepaid service in the UK
Hi John,
Thanks for your comment. We featured Pink Ladies last year: http://springwise.com/transportation/cabs_for_and_by_women
As far as I know, customers can pre-pay a booked ride with Pink Ladies, but can't be picked up without becoming members. Nice thing about Ge Home Free is that parents can give their children an emergency card and know they'll be able to use it whenever they really need it. No advance booking or membership requirements.
A really good idea - I forwarded this to to my brother. he runs a non-profit outside of Chicago, PATT, parents and teens together to help prevent underage drinking. The website is JPATT.org
Thanks for helping to save lives.
There are a few colleges around the nation that do safe ride programs that offer a free ride home without making any payments at all. One of the top ones is CARPOOL at Texas A&M. It is student run, safe, free, and non-judgmental. Their website, http://carpool.tamu.edu shows they have given over 100,000 rides since beginning in 1999. Also, they will take home anyone to the surrounding city, not just students.
For people visiting the town for a football game or just for the weekend, this is a very impressive service. And of course, it is heavily used by many students at A&M.
How does the cab driver get paid or the cab firm for that matter.
Its a great idea though.
This is great, but where I work (in Chicago) we already have vouchers with cab companies. The problem is that cab drivers simply refuse to accept the vouchers. I assume it is because they don't get paid right away in cash. Many cab drivers also refuse to accept credit cards for the same reason.
Cab drivers might be unwilling to accept the prepaid cards for the same reason.
a friend | August 16, 2007 2:35 PM