What’s the Problem?

Cornell is not an easy campus to navigate with its steep hills and sprawling student residential area. An accessibility solution does exist in the form of CULift, a paratransit pre-arranged shuttle program that serves approximately 300 students with documented disabilities via 1100+ monthly rides. However, the technical platform supporting CULift is grossly outdated, resulting in a poor user experience on both sides and overly stringent constraints on CULift policies. Carriage aims to build mobile and web platforms to improve the user experience of scheduling, completing, and monitoring CULift rides for all parties, thus improving Cornell’s accessibility for students with disabilities.

What’s the goal?

Carriage aims to build mobile and web platforms to improve the user experience of scheduling, completing, and monitoring CULift rides for all parties, thus improving Cornell’s accessibility for students with disabilities.

Carriage Product Rundowns:

Here is a link to 3 PowerPoint presentations that give a run-down of the need for Carriage on the Cornell campus:

Who’s it for?

Stakeholder Organizations

Support from every one of these organizations is imperative to the success of this product.

  1. CULift - Free prearranged shuttle service for SDS-approved students. CULift falls under the RedRunner umbrella, and the drivers for these two services are the same. However, CULift rides always have priority over RedRunner rides or packages. Supporting the CULift service is our primary focus. [https://sds.cornell.edu/accommodations-services/transportation/culift-guidelines]
  2. RedRunner - Paid Cornell courier service that offers transportation for people and packages. We may need to build out basic, internal support for RR ride and package handling in our scheduling solution given RR and CULift’s close relationship. [https://fcs.cornell.edu/departments/transportation-delivery-services/delivery-services/courier-service]
    1. While this was considered originally, we currently do not collaborate with RedRunner to actualize our product.
  3. SDS Student Disability Services works in partnership with Cornell faculty, staff, and students to ensure that all aspects of Cornell student life are accessible, equitable, and inclusive of individuals with disabilities. SDS manages the CULift program and approves students for CULift rides. [https://sds.cornell.edu/]
  4. CIT and SSIT Cornell IT needs to sign off on all technical aspects of this project as they are the ones who will ultimately have ownership and potentially maintenance responsibilities.

Users Profiles