Ride Coordination
Sort out who is driving and who needs a seat, for trips where everyone drives instead of flies.
Overview
Most buddy trips are drivable. Oglebay, French Lick, Pinehurst from anywhere in the Carolinas — nobody books a flight, but somebody still has to work out who is riding with who. The ride board handles exactly that:
- Raise Your Hand: Say you need a ride, for the drive out, the drive home, or both
- Offer Seats: Post how many seats you have, where you are leaving from, and when
- Matching: Organizers assign riders to a driver, or a player claims an open seat themselves
- Seat Tracking: Seats count down as riders are added, and a car is marked Full when it is
- Unmatched List: Everyone on the trip can see who still has no ride
The ride board is on the Travel tab of the trip dashboard, under Rides. It is separate from airport pickups, which run off rental cars: a player who adds a rental car with a passenger capacity is the driver, and the car’s seats fill from the arrivals list. There is no separate “I can drive” flag on a flight — the car is the ride.
| Use | When |
|---|---|
| Rides | Drivable trip, no flights involved |
| Airport pickups (rental cars) | Group is flying in; renters collect players landing near their pickup time |
Airport pickups work the same in both places:
- Dashboard — Rental Cars → Smart Assign suggests who each car should collect (players who flagged “I need a ride” first, then anyone landing 0–60 minutes before the pickup), and you accept or edit the passenger list.
- Portal — the Travel tab’s Airport pickups section lists every car with its open seats. Renters and trip admins add the suggested arrivals; anyone else can Grab a seat in a car with room, and give it up later.
Needing a Ride
Click I need a ride and pick when you need it. Origin and notes are optional but make matching much easier — “Pittsburgh, PA, can meet anywhere off I-70” tells a driver everything they need.
| Field | Required | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Who needs the ride | Yes | Defaults to you; organizers can raise a hand for anyone |
| When | Yes | Getting there, getting home, or both ways |
| Coming from | No | City, meeting point, or anything a driver would ask |
| Notes | No | Bags, clubs, timing constraints |
Each player has one ride request per trip. Edit it rather than adding a second one, and remove it if you sort out your own transport.
Offering a Ride
Click Offer a ride and enter the seats you have for passengers — not counting yourself. A driver with a four-seat car and a trunk full of clubs usually offers 2.
| Field | Required | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Driver | Yes | Defaults to you; organizers can post on someone’s behalf |
| Seats for passengers | Yes | 1–15, excluding the driver |
| When | Yes | Getting there, getting home, or both ways |
| Leaving from | No | Where you are starting |
| Departure time | No | When you plan to pull out |
| Notes | No | Bag space, stops, anything riders should know |
Matching Riders to Drivers
There are two ways to fill a seat, and both land in the same place.
Organizer Assigns
From the Needs a ride list, pick a driver from the dropdown next to a player’s name. Only drivers with seats left appear, and a driver never appears next to their own name.
Player Claims a Seat
From any car with seats left, click Claim a seat. A ride request is created for you automatically if you had not already raised your hand.
The Rules
The database enforces these, so they hold no matter how a seat gets filled:
| Rule | Behaviour |
|---|---|
| Seats never oversell | Assigning past the last seat is rejected — the car shows Full instead |
| One car per rider | A rider can sit in exactly one offer; assigning them elsewhere moves them |
| No self-rides | A driver cannot be a rider in their own offer |
| Seat count floor | An offer’s seats cannot be lowered below the riders already in it |
Cancelling and Deleting
| Action | Effect on riders |
|---|---|
| Cancel an offer | Every rider is released back to Needs a ride; the offer stays visible as Cancelled |
| Delete an offer | Same release, but the offer disappears entirely |
| Remove a rider | That rider goes back to unmatched and the seat reopens |
| Remove a request | The player drops off the ride board completely |
Cancel rather than delete when a plan is off but you want the group to see that it was on the board. Nothing here deletes a player from the trip.
What It Does Not Do
Deliberately out of scope, to keep the board something people actually fill in:
- No notifications — the board is the source of truth, check it
- No maps or routing — origins are free text
- No cost splitting — put gas money through Expense Tracking instead
Related
- SyncedCaddie — forward a confirmation email to auto-fill flights and rental cars
- Expense Tracking & Settlement — split gas, tolls and parking