Case Western Reserve University will transition to two new campus safety apps for emergency alerts and transportation services on campus. Effective August 1, the university's Spartan Safe and Spartan Ride apps will be available to the campus community.
According to an official university release, Spartan Safe operates under the Rave Mobile Safety platform, which has been in place at Case Western to send emergency alerts. Spartan Safe will replace the Rave Guardian app, and provide additional functionality to boost safety on campus.
Spartan Safe app features:
- Real-time campus updates from the @cwru twitter news feed, along with quick access to critical phone numbers, including campus police, safety, mental health, and wellness resources.
- Mobile BlueLight feature to relay user's position in real time to a dispatcher and initiate an emergency call to public safety.
- Friend Walk feature to enable users to send their position to a friend via SMS or email. The friend can follow along as the user walks to their destination, and both the user and friend can activate the emergency button if anything happens during the walk.
- Anonymous tip reporting and chat in-app can be routed to appropriate departments.
- Emergency plans for active aggressors, evacuations, severe weather and suspicious packages.
- Push Notifications in the event of an emergency, and individuals can share their location with the app to receive geo-targeted alerts.
- The Spartan Ride app will combine on-demand safe ride services and shuttle route schedules into a single app interface, and will replace Case Western's existing Safe Ride app.
- Safe ride services will be available in the app beginning August 1, with shuttle route schedules added later in the month.
Spartan Ride features include:
- A toggle feature between tabs in the app to access Safe Ride services or locate the nearest shuttle route.
- Increased reliability with the integration of existing public transportation services in the area through TransLoc platform.
- Dedicated grocery route to and from Dave’s Market daily from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. This route will provide quicker wait times for those who need to transport groceries.
“Whether we’re communicating emergency information or helping the CWRU community get around campus quickly, we want to be able to offer the best tools to keep campus safe -- Spartan Safe and Spartan Ride will help us do that,” says Megan Koeth, Executive Director of Public Safety at Case Western Reserve University. “We’re excited to make these transitions and to offer new features that will make it easier for our community to stay informed and safe.”
Both Spartan Safe and Spartan Ride will be available for free download on the App Store and Google Play on August 1, 2022. The existing CWRU Rave Guardian and CWRU Safe Ride apps will no longer be in service after July 31.