Feasibility Study

You Drink, We Drive

Not for Profit Organization

Introduction
You Drink We Drive is going to be based in Oxford, Ohio and will be utilized solely by
the students of Miami University. The service will primarily function around High Street
(Uptown), where students will be given the option of getting a ride back to their home/residence
hall.
The main goal of this non-profit organization is to provide a service for students that
allows them to get back to their home/residence hall quickly and safely. Our service will provide
car rides from the hours of 10pm-4am. The days of operation are Thursday through Saturday.
Each car will be a minivan that is able to fit six to seven people in one car ride. Each minivan
will be parked at specific locations that are the most suitable for the students of Miami
University. Students will simply walk up to our minivans and ask for a ride back to their
home/residence hall. After the student has been dropped off, the driver will return back to his/her
designated location. The fee per car is $3, and that fee will be divided by the number of students
in the minivan. Each person will have the option of paying through their Bursar account or cash.
In order to be eligible for a ride, the person must be a student of Miami University or directly
affiliated with a student. During the ride, each student will be given a water and a snack upon
request. The snacks and water will be free of charge.

Background
You Drink We Drive headquarters will be held in Oxford, Ohio approximately a mile
away from the Uptown location of Miami University. There are a few similar entities in the
Oxford area. One is the bus service. The bus service does not operate past 10pm and is free of
charge.
Another group of organizations are the taxi services. The taxi services run 24 hours a day,
every day of the week. Pricing of the taxi services are approximately five dollars per car. If the
number of people exceeds five, then the fee is one dollar per person. Therefore, 1-5 people in the
car totals a cost of five dollars. If there are six people in the car then the service cost six dollars.
The other entity that is similar to our organization is BCRTA SafeRide. This service is
free of charge for any student or employee of Miami University. You call the organization and
they will pick you up from the location. The hours of operation of BCRTA SafeRide are 10pm3am Monday thru Saturday, and 10pm-1am on Sunday.

Methods
The data that was collected in doing the research for this non-profit organization was
obtained through a survey that was distributed to the class and peers, as well as independent data
and statistics that was acquired from trusted sources including Police Reports as well as Miami
University Statistics.

The survey was aimed to address peers and their personal experience when it comes to
how safe they feel when they are going out, as well as how they feel coming back home after a
night uptown. The survey was designed using the survey host, Survey Monkey. It was distributed
to the general Miami student body population. The survey was first made available to the ENG
313 class and then individually distributed to peers and students. The amount of answers that
were obtained from the survey was less than what was hoped for. Although this is so, the data
was consistent among those who partook in the survey, allowing us to believe that this might
very well be the general view of the entire student body at Miami University.
The research that was conducted suggested that there were several other businesses that
were similar to ours. A taxi service, also known as Swerve Em Taxi can also be found in
Oxford, Ohio. This service appears to be rather cheap, as the taxi service commonly offers a ride
from a residence hall or home to a number of people for a total of $5.

Results
Figure 1

Figure 1. The following data, collected from the survey makes it clear that a large
number of students at Miami do in fact drink.
Figure 2

Figure 2. Further collected data, presented above illustrated the overwhelming majority
of people who are willing to use Miami University funds to pay for a safe and convenient ride
home.
Figure 3

Figure 3. This data presents the overwhelming majority of students who would like to be
driven back to their dwelling. This prominent data further suggests the amount of people who
would use the service.

Figure 4

Figure 4. This chart presents the people who would be likely to use our service and the
mode of transportation that they would prefer.
Figure 5

Figure 5. The data provided above further illustrates the common places that students
would use the service. This further reinforces the feasibility of forming this non-profit
organization.
Figure 1 presents the results on what percentage of Miami University Students drink
alcohol. From those surveyed, it was determined that 51.85% of all surveyed students have an

overwhelming majority of friends, more than 75%, that drink alcohol. It must further be noted
that 44.44% of surveyed participants had just under or just over the majority of their friends
drinking alcohol on a regular basis. Figure 2 presents the method that students would prefer to
pay for the You Drink, We Drive service if they were to use it. It was determined that, 80.77%
of students would want to pay for the service through Mulaa or their Bursar Account (Figure 2).
From the observed data, the preferred mode of transportation is a golf cart. 42.31% of students
would like to be transported back to their dwellings in this way. The second option that was
suggested by survey participants was a car or taxi. 30.77% of participants preferenced this mode
of transportation. Figure 5 presents the common places that people find themselves in need to be
picked up at. 52.00% of students wish to be escorted home from Brick Street or an area near this
location. Such cluster of people will further allow the location of the cars to be determined.
In addition to our survey a study conducted by Miami University on crimes in the Oxford
area was studied. The study showed that the number of reported sexual offences has steadily
decrease from 36 in 2013 to 21 in 2015. On the other hand, the number of aggressive assaults has
doubled since 2013, with a total of 14 recorded in 2015. Similarly, the number of alcohol related
arrest has increased significantly and was recorded at a record high in 2015 with over 170
arrests. All this information will be essential in determining the feasibility of this nonprofit
program.

Discussion
The feasibility of the project can be broken down into a few key parts:
Firstly, the project must be needed by the students of Miami University. Based on the
survey that was conducted, 70.77% of students said that they would use our service. Based on
this percentage, the feasibility in this aspect is fulfilled.
Secondly, the cash flow going into the organization must be equal to or greater than the
cash flow coming out of the organization. Each car ride provides a stream of three dollars in
revenue going into the organization. This stream of revenue must provide enough money to
account for fuel, food, paychecks of employees, and an initial investment of the price of cars.
Since our location is located approximately 1-2 miles away from the Uptown location and the
students will be driven within a one mile radius, gas is not a large expense. To be precise, the
average fuel economy of a Dodge Caravan (preferred car of choice) is approximately 20 mi/gal.
Therefore, each trip would be somewhere between zero and two miles of total driving distance.
If the driver were to drive two miles and the average price of gas per gallon is $2.00, then the
cost of driving that student/group of students would be $0.20. If the driver is getting paid a
minimum wage of $8.10 and does 8 rides an hour, then he/she would make $1.01 per ride. As for
the snacks, there are a total of six students that are allowed ride in the minivan at once. This
means that there would have to be six bottles of water and six snacks per ride (if the maximum
number of students were in the car and they all asked for a snack). Buying water in bulk allows
you to spend approximately $0.10 per bottle. This could potentially total to $0.60 per car ride.
Buying pretzels in bulk allows us to spend approximately $0.084 per serving of pretzels. This

could potentially total in $0.504 per car ride. Without including the initial investment of the cars,
we would have a gross profit of $0.686 per car ride per car.
With the inclusion of the initial investment of the cars the pricing would greatly exceed
the remaining amount of money that we have. With that amount of money however, we could
purchase five cars at first and slowly pay it off with the profit of each car ride. If there is a profit
of $0.686 per car ride, and we have five cars that all complete eight car rides in an hour, then
over four hours we would profit $109.76 in total. Therefore, if each used car costs $5,000, then
the total price of five cars would sum up to $25,000. Based on the net profit per day, it would
take 228 working days to pay off the price of the cars. As a non-profit organization, we would be
able to take donations from people. This would significantly decrease the number of days that it
would take to pay off the the loans/initial payments of the cars. Other donations could also come
in the form of snacks and water. Another area where we could reduce expenses would be to have
volunteers work shifts. This is not something that we could rely on, but it is an opportunity to
save expenses.

Limitations
Our study and the data that collected from Survey Monkey was limited in several ways.
The first limitation that was encountered was the sample size used to collect data on Survey
Monkey. A sample size of 27 people is a considerably low quantity compared to Miami
Universitys undergraduate body of 16,000 students. Although our target sample size was much
larger, useful data from the survey results was still obtained. Another limitation was the type of
students that we surveyed. It was difficult to collect responses from most, if not all, types of
students on Miamis campus, but we managed to collect sufficient data from a variety of student
cliques. The survey data was collected by sending the link to peers on campus. This suggests that
the sample may not have been randomly selected potentially leading to bias within the survey
results.

Conclusion
Based upon the surveys we conducted and the data that we collected, it has been
concluded that our organization would be feasible The survey results inform readers that the
majority of students on campus drink alcohol and that 80% of those students would appreciate
being driven home after drinking. It has further been concluded that there are not many services
similar to ours within the Oxford area.
We specialize in services that include reliable transportation as well as getting students
home safely at late hours. We also provide food and water to balance the negative effects of
alcohol consumption. In the end, You Drink, We Drive is an organization that provides Miami
Students with a convenient and safe service home.

Works Cited
"Oxford Campus Report." - Miami University. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Nov. 2016.
"2016 Sexual Assault Campus Climate Survey." - Miami University. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Nov.
2016.