I have been driving rideshare in the UMass Amherst market for about three years now.
And for three years, major events around the university have produced variations of the same problem.
Move-in.
Move-out.
Graduation.
Football games.
Special events.
Road closures.
Traffic patterns get changed. Roads become one-way. Entrances get blocked. Areas that were accessible yesterday aren’t accessible today.
And then Uber sends me toward them anyway.
At some point, this stops being an inconvenience and starts becoming a legitimate question:
Why the hell are UMass, Uber and Lyft not coordinating this information before drivers get there?
Because none of these events are surprises.
UMass knows when move-in is happening.
It knows where the barricades are going.
It knows which roads it is closing.
It knows where traffic is being redirected.
It knows where students will and won’t be allowed to have vehicles.
And it is actually publishing much of that information.
For Fall 2026, UMass has published specific move-in dates, traffic procedures and hired-car instructions. Students arriving without their own vehicle can use university shuttles from locations including the Bromery Center for the Arts at Haigis Mall and Flint Circle. (UMass Amherst)
So I’m not saying UMass doesn’t have a plan.
I’m saying publishing a plan and actively integrating that plan with the transportation platforms serving your students are two entirely different things.
And Douglas Adams pretty much figured this problem out decades ago.
“But the Information Was Available”
There’s a certain bureaucratic logic that goes something like this:
Well, we published the information.
Wonderful.
Where?
On a university webpage?
Under Residential Services?
Transportation?
Public Safety?
Student Affairs?
Inside a move-in FAQ?
On a map somebody can download?
Because here’s the problem.
My Uber Driver app doesn’t read the UMass Residential Services website before accepting a trip.
Neither does Lyft.
A webpage doesn’t move the passenger’s pickup pin.
A PDF doesn’t update Uber’s navigation.
A campus email doesn’t stop Lyft from sending a driver toward a street with a barricade sitting across it.
So when somebody says, “Well, the information was available,” my response is:
Available to whom?
Because apparently it wasn’t available to the computer system that just dispatched me there.
That is the part Douglas Adams got right.
The absurdity isn’t that the information doesn’t exist.
The absurdity is that the bureaucracy believes putting information somewhere counts as successfully communicating it to the people who actually need it.
Higher education just seems to have perfected the concept.
UMass Already Knows Normal Navigation Won’t Always Work
That’s what makes this even stranger.
UMass’s own move-in information establishes special routes and procedures because ordinary campus traffic is being altered. During the September 2-4 assisted move-in period this year, the university is operating specific arrival, unloading and parking procedures. (UMass Amherst)
And UMass is now changing other parts of campus traffic as well. Beginning September 1, 2026, the university established a pedestrian-only pilot zone through part of the core campus, restricting most vehicles from an area stretching roughly from North Pleasant Street to Hicks Way and from Haigis Mall toward Goessmann Laboratory. (UMass Amherst)
Fine.
Universities are allowed to manage their roads.
Public safety needs traffic plans.
Pedestrian areas can make sense.
But every time you change how vehicles are allowed to move through a campus, you also change how rideshare transportation needs to operate.
That’s not an unrelated issue.
That’s part of the transportation plan.
Uber Already Has the Tools
Here’s where my patience with this starts getting a little thinner.
Uber already has technology specifically designed to solve this problem.
Uber’s Mobility Solutions operation advertises dedicated geofencing, customized pickup and drop-off locations, in-app road-closure implementation, specialized dispatch tools and communications to riders and drivers. It also offers traffic evaluations and loading-zone design. (Uber)
And here’s the important part:
Uber says those special pickup and drop-off locations can be time-gated for specific dates, times and events. (Uber)
So the technology already exists.
If UMass says:
From Wednesday at 8 a.m. until Friday at 5 p.m., these roads are restricted and these locations will be used for rideshare,
Uber has a system capable of implementing exactly that kind of temporary configuration.
We’re not asking anybody to invent warp drive here.
We’re asking them to update a map.
Lyft Already Works With Universities Too
Lyft doesn’t get a pass either.
Lyft says more than 100 colleges and universities use its higher-education transportation programs. (Lyft)
And there’s already a real-world example of exactly what I’m talking about.
At the University of Southern California, Lyft says USC created designated campus pickup and drop-off areas using Lyft’s venue-mapping system, helping reduce congestion in heavily traveled areas. (Lyft)
There it is.
A university.
A rideshare company.
Designated pickup locations.
Mapping integration.
Reduced congestion.
Apparently this mysterious technology has already been discovered.
So why are we still having drivers discover UMass traffic restrictions when they physically reach them?
This Should Be Automatic
The process shouldn’t be complicated.
UMass creates its event traffic plan.
It already has to do that.
Here are the road closures.
Here are the restrictions.
Here are the temporary one-way roads.
Here are the entrances drivers can use.
Here are the entrances they cannot use.
Here are the hours those rules apply.
Then UMass sends that information to Uber and Lyft before the event begins.
Uber and Lyft review it and establish temporary rideshare zones.
Maybe Haigis Mall is appropriate.
Maybe Flint Circle works for another section.
Maybe another perimeter location makes more sense depending on the event.
That is something transportation planners can determine.
Then Uber and Lyft time-gate the changes.
The rider opens Uber.
Instead of dropping a pickup pin behind a barricade, the app says:
Special UMass traffic restrictions are in effect. Proceed to Rideshare Pickup Zone A.
The driver gets the request.
Instead of the app trying to route me onto the restricted road, it takes me directly to Zone A.
The officer directing traffic knows Zone A is the rideshare area.
The student knows Zone A is the rideshare area.
I know Zone A is the rideshare area.
Nobody needs to debate anything at a barricade.
Nobody needs to call anybody.
Nobody needs to drive around campus looking for an entrance that may or may not exist.
That is called coordination.
And Don’t Complain About My Pickup Time Afterwards
This is another part of the issue Uber needs to own.
If you’re going to judge drivers on pickup performance, cancellations, rider complaints or anything else connected with how efficiently we’re completing these trips, then your map needs to represent the environment you’re sending us into.
You don’t get to send me toward a road that UMass has closed and then have a passenger wondering:
Why is my driver taking so long?
Because your map is wrong.
You don’t get to route me toward the middle of campus, have a police officer redirect me three times, and then let the passenger conclude:
This driver doesn’t know where he’s going.
Your system doesn’t know where it’s going.
Uber itself says ratings resulting from circumstances outside a driver’s control, including traffic, can be excluded from a driver’s rating. (Uber)
Good.
But the better solution isn’t merely cleaning up a bad rating afterward.
Prevent the bad experience from happening in the first place.
If Uber knows UMass hosts major predictable events, Uber should be contacting the university and saying:
Give us your updated traffic plan.
And if UMass is generating those plans, UMass should be sending them.
And If UMass Doesn’t Send It?
Then eventually Uber and Lyft need a fallback.
If a university repeatedly modifies its road network but won’t provide reliable current information to the platforms serving it, the rideshare companies should stop pretending they have accurate point-to-point pickup coverage inside the affected area.
They should establish their own temporary perimeter pickup points.
Not because they’re “blackballing” the university out of spite.
Because you cannot responsibly keep dispatching drivers into an area when you know your routing information cannot be trusted.
The platform can essentially say:
We don’t have sufficiently reliable traffic information for this event. All pickups and drop-offs within the affected campus zone will therefore be directed to these locations.
That’s it.
You want something better?
Coordinate with us.
You want your students picked up closer to their residence halls?
Coordinate with us.
You don’t like where the rideshare zone ended up?
Coordinate with us.
But what can’t continue being the default solution is:
Send the independent driver in there and let him figure it out.
We’re not the transportation planners.
We’re the people following the transportation instructions supplied to us.
This Is Exactly Why Uber Crew Matters
This is also one of the things that has made me look more seriously at the whole idea of Uber Crew.
Uber currently describes Crew as a program in which drivers and couriers select other drivers and couriers to bring local concerns to Uber’s decision-makers. Crew Members gather feedback and work with Uber’s business and product teams on improvements. Uber currently lists a 2027 Crew application period for October 2026. (Uber)
Uber also says Crew feedback has produced actual changes. The company says more than 100 Crew sessions covering nearly 80 subjects took place during 2025 and contributed to dozens of product updates. (Uber)
Well, here’s an issue worth bringing to them.
Because this isn’t something a generic support representative can solve.
This is a market-level operational problem.
Drivers who actually work Amherst know where the problems are.
We know what happens during move-in.
We know what happens when the university closes certain roads.
We know where students routinely request rides.
We know which areas become impossible.
We know which proposed pickup points would work and which would simply move the traffic jam somewhere else.
That’s valuable information.
And it’s exactly why local driver representation matters.
If I’m involved with something like Uber Crew, I don’t want to spend the entire time talking about whether somebody likes the location of a button in the app.
I want to be able to say:
Here is an institutional transportation problem affecting drivers in this market. Your company already owns technology that can solve it. Here are the people you need to coordinate with. Let’s fix it.
And this shouldn’t be limited to UMass.
Every Crew Member representing an area with a major university should be asking the same questions.
Who does the university contact at Uber when roads change?
Who does Uber contact at the university?
When does that information have to be submitted?
How quickly can map changes be activated?
Who verifies that they actually went live?
What happens when the university fails to communicate?
Those are useful questions.
Three Years Is Enough
Because that’s where I keep coming back to this.
I’ve been doing rideshare in the UMass Amherst market for three years.
I’ve seen enough campus events to know this isn’t a one-time screwup.
These are predictable disruptions.
And predictable disruptions are precisely the things planning is supposed to address.
UMass already creates plans.
Uber already has geofencing and temporary pickup technology.
Lyft already works with universities and has implemented designated campus pickup areas elsewhere.
Students already depend on rideshare.
Drivers are already there.
The only missing component appears to be making sure all of those pieces are talking to one another.
So please spare me the bureaucratic version of:
“But we published it.”
Publishing something isn’t the same thing as communicating it.
And communication isn’t complete until the information reaches the systems and people expected to act on it.
If you close a road, tell Uber.
Tell Lyft.
Update the pickup zones.
Update the routing.
Tell the students.
Tell the drivers.
Tell the officers directing traffic.
And if the university isn’t willing to provide reliable information, then Uber and Lyft should establish their own fixed locations and tell the university:
These are the pickup points until you give us something better.
Because when every institution involved possesses the information or technology necessary to prevent the problem, but the driver is still sitting at the barricade trying to figure out what the hell everybody intended—
Douglas Adams wasn’t writing science fiction.
He was apparently writing a transportation manual for higher education.