HitcHike is a new free app that helps students search and find rides from other students within their respective universities.

Nicholas Vale, a freshman majoring in information sciences, technology and arts, created the app. HitcHike is able to find a student who has open seats in their car, is headed to the same destination and is willing to carpool.

Nicholas Vale said that on HitcHike, the user logs in, registers and posts a Hitch. He said the user will have a profile picture and can include their email, age, gender and phone number and can also choose whether or not to include their address and a bio.

The person providing the ride will be posting when and where they are headed, how many spots they have available and whether or not they want gas money. Students will be able to pay through the app to reserve their seat.

“It’s a win-win situation,” Nicholas Vale said, because one person is finding a ride and the other can get extra gas money.

 Ten percent of the gas money goes towards the funding of the app servers and back-end process, according to Nicholas Vale.

The app will become available to all students who have a .edu email, which is the only way someone can register for the app, a way of keeping the “HitcHike” process safe, according to Nicholas Vale.

There will also be a safe search filter for the “hiker” that will allow you to choose the age or gender of students you prefer to carpool with.

Nicholas Vale first thought of the idea when he was speaking with his girlfriend Chrisanne Tirres, an interior design freshman at Northern Arizona University, over the phone and was trying to figure out how they were going to see each other because they attend different schools. He realized that a lot of students have trouble finding rides, and soon after, he started creating the app.

“I think it’s going to be awesome, and I think it’s going to be revolutionary,” Tirres said. “I’ve seen nothing like it. It’s totally useful.”Nithin Reddy, a foreign programmer in India whom Nicholas Vale has worked with on other projects and found through Elance.com, helped him develop the app.

HitcHike will be launched within two or three weeks after the payment and search options are finished, according to Nicholas Vale.  Jonathan Vale, a sustainable plant systems junior, is the brother of the founder and a supporter of the app.

“HitcHike conceptually and functionally does what should have been done with localized transport years ago,” Jonathan Vale said. “It’s one of those things where you say, ‘Wow, I can’t believe I didn’t create this.’”

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