By: Alexis Economy
Searching for something more than just a regular taxi ride to campus on game days? Then catch a ride with Shuttle 5500, Athens’s newest and most innovative game day shuttle service!
The service started by business partners James Tomol and Jordan Dyce is part of a management class taught at the University of Georgia, through the Terry College of Business. The class, taught by Christopher Hanks, allows students to formulate their own business plans and then actually launch the proposed business idea during the semester.
According to Hanks, while many business schools offer similar classes that enable students to develop a business plan, only the University offers a class that concentrates primarily on launching the actual business.
“We are the only entrepreneurship program in the country with an exclusive focus on launching the actual business,” said Hanks.
So why do a shuttle service on game day in Athens, when the city already has numerous taxis and vans?
The answer, “to create an experience,” said James Tomol, a senior and management major from Sarasota, Fla. and also the group leader of Shuttle 5500.
“We don’t want to be a commodity we want to be compelling and provocative,” said Tomol.
That’s what you get with Shuttle 5500, a new kind of game day ride experience. While on the ride guests can play trivia games about Georgia football or just talk about experiences at the University and the Terry College of Business.
“Most of our customers are UGA alum and more specifically Terry alum, so most of the time we just end up talking about Terry and different business related issues,” said Tomol.
In addition to trivia and good conversation, guests are offered the option of purchasing chips or soft drinks and are even offered free pizza. During its first weekend of business, Fox’s Pizza sponsored Shuttle 5500 and donated pizzas to be distributed on the rides.
According to Tomol, the business is hoping to get more sponsors and to work out a deal where if you buy a Shuttle 5500 shirt and wear it, you are eligible for different deals and savings at the businesses on the actual shirt.
Through this t-shirt idea Tomol and his business partner Jordan Dyce, a senior and management major from Atlanta, Ga. are hoping to make the service free. Currently Shuttle 5500 is looking for more advertisers to cover their main costs, so the t-shirt can just be a benefit or option to using the shuttle service.
However the search for more advertisers is not by any means meant to imply that this business venture has been unsuccessful thus far. In fact, it has been quite the opposite. With only one weekend under its belt, the business can already boast serving approximately 200 guests.
“On our first weekend we began running at around 9:00 a.m. and then started again about an hour after the game ended. We did not finish until around 4:00 a.m. It was crazy,” said Dyce.
The shuttle picks up at mainly the Howard Johnson, Hampton Inn, and the Country Inn Suites near the intersection of Atlanta Highway and Alps Road and makes pick ups and drop offs about every thirty minutes. The shuttle picks up at the three hotels and then drops guests off at the bus stop near the arch in the downtown.
With parking costs soaring to $40 and taxis costing $10 and upwards per person, Shuttle 5500 seems to have found its niche in offering a unique and full experience (for nearly no cost) to Georgia fans on game day.
Alexis prefers writing the lead after the entire article is written. She likes to gather all her information and sit down and write the article in one sitting, rather than starting the article and writing it over the course of a few days. She did not like hunting down and having to harass her sources for quoutes, however she does like helping out the students with their business since they are seniors, like Alexis.
ReplyDeleteAlexis had a very nice, thorough article with a great focus on the topic. She is great at writing paragraphs in a news-worthy sequence. We changed her second paragraph a bit to clarify what she wanted to say, and also worked on describing what the T-shirts were and how they functioned. I suggested she use a lead answering the who what where when why and how questions, rather than a question-answer format-it's a little bit too adversting-ish. There were a few other minor word changes. I enjoyed her article overall.
Alternative lede: University of Georgia students have come up with a way to avoid calling a taxi on gameday with the Shuttle 5500, a free shuttle service which takes fans to and from football games.