Illinois State launches social media rideshare

NORMAL — Illinois State University has unveiled an online ride-sharing service for students and employees to find people to carpool with.

The Normal-based school launched the effort Tuesday. The (Bloomington) Pantagraph reports that ISU is paying a company called Zimride $15,000 to set up and run the service using Facebook and Twitter.

Julie North is ISU’s director of parking and transportation, and she hopes to have anywhere from 600 to 1,000 people using the service by next fall.

School officials hope that by launching not long before spring break they’ll get a boost from students looking for people to share rides to vacation spots or back home.

Zimride says it has more than 350,000 users on about 80 college campuses. ISU is the first four-year school to use it in Illinois.