This Thanksgiving, transportation could be more accessible and affordable for Texas A&M students with the help of OurBus.
Founded in 2016, the technology company specializes in affordable crowdsourced bus routes organized through their website and mobile app. The College Station trial run for OurBus will begin Tuesday and end Sunday. Each trip will cost about $10 and can take passengers from College Station to Austin and Houston bus stops. The College Station stop is at Tauber Street between University Drive and Church Avenue.
OurBus was founded to create a better experience for passengers and more business for bus-owning companies, co-founder Axel Hellman said.
“We realize that, historically, long-distance bus travel has not had the greatest service with the customer, so we are trying to make things better,” Hellman said.
According to the OurBus spokesperson Catherine Kadar, another purpose of the company is to make transportation services accessible in more locations.
“OurBus is dedicated to bringing new transportation alternatives to regions like Texas that lack affordable and efficient transportation options,” Kadar said. “The company is made up of students, travelers and commuters who realize that enjoying a comfortable ride and one that can be booked easily on your smartphone is just as important as the final destination.”
Kadar said she originally a customer of OurBus and was impressed by the service. She reached out to the company and started working as its public relations consultant so she could help others the same way OurBus helped her.
“As a former college student myself, I know the challenges students face in finding an inexpensive ride home,” Kadar said. “All of us at OurBus are constantly looking for ways to address the unique needs of students.”
Having an affordable method of transportation allows students without a car to see their families more and make traveling outside of College Station easier, said forensic and investigative sciences sophomore Heather Hockersmith.
“I’m from Minnesota, and just having an affordable option to get to the airport in Houston would make it so much easier to get home or see my other family members in Texas,” Hockersmith said. “It’s really hard to feel isolated and unable to go places, so I think that having OurBus as an option would really improve student life here at TAMU.”
As for the future of OurBus in College Station, Hellman said the company will see how things go with this Thanksgiving trial run and move forward from there.
“If people like the service and tell us that they need it, then we’ll do a soft launch, possibly in January, and we will start running them a couple of days a week and expand gradually from there,” Hellman said.
More information on trip prices and dates is available at ourbus.com/bookticket.