Popular rideshare services like Uber and Lyft can be useful for college students that may not have a ride home from a party, or from class on a rainy day; but, what if there was a service that existed solely for college students? Wags Wheels LLC., a new rideshare company founded by Dillion Wagner, a 22-year-old former Rowan student, is developing an app to make a safe ride home easier and more accessible for Rowan students.
About a year ago, Wagner began giving his college friends rides home from parties — but as time went on, his friendly favors turned into a small business and tech startup on Rowan’s campus.
“That’s where the whole idea originated about two years ago when I would just give just some rides to my buddies… I just had a bunch of friends of Greek life that needed rides, and I just offered them,” said Wagner.
The name for the business, Wags Wheels originated from Wagner’s high school nickname when he was playing lacrosse for his school. He graduated from St. Augustine Preparatory School in 2019 and now works as a full-time entrepreneur and promoter for local clubs and bars in the Philadelphia and Glassboro area. Including Landmark Americana, a popular restaurant and bar just off Rowan’s campus.
As he started to drive his friends around more and more, he noticed that there were a lot of students who were walking through campus late at night or in bad weather conditions.
“I realized, as I’m driving, being the sober buddy on campus, I’m seeing an enormous amount of students walking everywhere… I mean, it is just, it’s crazy. Some of the conditions that people are walking in and then some of the long distances people are walking on campus,” Wagner said.
After he noticed this trend, he began talking to different friends in Greek Life organizations on campus. Soon, people started to call him asking for rides for themselves and their friends.
In September, Wags Wheels was able to file for an LLC. and is now in the process of developing an app —which will be tested with sports teams and Greek organizations on Rowan’s Campus to ensure the best service. If it succeeds, the company hopes to release it to the rest of Rowan’s student body by next fall.
The app will only be available for Rowan students to ensure the safety and security of the rideshare service.
“If you have a student email, you’re a verified student of that university. And you can be verified on any platform. And that’s what we’re doing with our app. Only the students with a rowan.edu [email address], are going to be able to be on the platform,” said Wagner.
Wags Wheels vehicles are also all marked so that students know that the vehicle they are getting in is the ride that they ordered.
“If you see these vehicles traveling across campus, just take a look at that vehicle that you see. It has a large Wags Wheels emblem on the side and they’re all decaled up with Wags Wheels decals to make it known, ‘Hey, this is a Wags Wheels vehicle. This is a safe vehicle to get in,’” Wagner said.
Sophomores Devin Tutela, an elementary education major, and Marjorie Cruz, a psychology major, have both used the service before and reached out to Wagner when they needed a ride.
“You can literally text him and just be like ‘Hey, are you doing rides?’ and he’ll be like ‘Yeah I can pick you up whenever.’ You could let him know like 10 minutes in advance and it’s cheap and they’re just really nice,” Tutela said.
Cruz noted that the drivers often make an effort to connect with their passengers and peers as well.
“It works out in the end when you want to get a ride… They play good music and the car smells nice and they’re just so nice always and they actually have conversations with you,” Cruz added.
The service is run solely by students and is available for students to use all day. Rides go as late as 5 in the morning. Rides to Philly and the airport are available for students as well.
“What we want the whole campus to know is that ‘Hey… within a press of a button or a call Wags is here for you’… You may need to just literally run to a doctor’s appointment, you need to run to your to class, or you might be running late or something like that. We’re here for you,” Wagner said.
Wags Wheels plans to test its app within the next few weeks, but in the meantime, any Rowan student can still use the rideshare links to get around campus. Students that are looking to book a ride through Wags Wheels can text their name and student email to (856) 981-2472, where they will receive a ride link, or they can use this QR code.
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