LERI’s $5 Rutgers Rides Leave Students Holding Insurance

LERI sells Rutgers campus rides for $5 and tells students the app carries no insurance. The iPhone marketplace, built by senior Elliott Tamarkin, now invites 600-plus sign-ups to fill empty seats that already pass packed bus stops.

Tamarkin, an Honors College Scholar in the School of Arts and Sciences, calls LERI a campus ride board rather than a new Uber. The people who absorb a crash are the students in the car, and the FAQ says so in plain language.

The App Sells Empty Seats for Five Dollars

The iPhone-only App Store listing frames LERI as a student-to-student board for class, the gym, dining halls, and dorms, with no detours and no strangers. It is free to download, locked to Rutgers, and still unpublished for Android.

Tamarkin’s spark was a freshman morning. He had brought a car to campus and drove past a packed stop, then sat down in class next to the same faces he had left at the curb. They were going where he was going, and his back seat was empty.

“The bus was especially packed that day, and I just looked at some faces … and I felt bad for them,” he said. “Wait, they were going from the same place as me, to the same place as me, and I was driving past them with empty seats in my car.”

Drivers post a route, a time, and open seats. Passengers browse those posts, pick a driver from a profile, and book as far as 24 hours ahead. Drivers accept the people they want. There is no auto-match, and the copy on the store page calls that control the product.

Spring 2026 was the test, and Tamarkin said the team closed it with more than 300 verified accounts. The company site now greets visitors with 600-plus students already signed up. Those are different counts from different months, and neither is a daily ridership figure.

The store page shows 17 ratings at 5.0. Version 1.0.2 landed on November 27, 2025, 1.1.0 on January 4, 2026, and 1.2.0 on February 13, 2026, with notification fixes and profile work. Reviewers describe an orgo exam saved in the cold and a way to get paid for a drive already planned. None of them ask who pays if a bumper folds on College Avenue.

Drivers Keep $4 After Stripe Takes Its Cut

Every campus hop is $5, with no surge and no extra fees, according to both the store page and the company site. Tamarkin has said that fare is about a third of Uber and that LERI is not trying to be a new Uber, only a steady way to class.

Drivers earn $4 per passenger. The leftover dollar is split in half, Tamarkin said: 50 cents to Stripe, which processes the charge, and 50 cents back into the app. The site’s own example is blunt. Two passengers on the way there and two on the way back is four fares and $16 for the driver.

THE $5 SPLIT ON EVERY LERI RIDE

Passengers pay in the app when they book. Drivers are paid after the trip. If a driver cancels, the site says the passenger gets an immediate refund. Front-end work came from Ankit Nath and back-end work from Kartik Marathe, and Tamarkin has said the first versions tried to do too much, including cancel logic that did not need to ship yet.

That $4 is pocket money for a seat that was moving anyway. It is not a commercial rate that buys a commercial policy.

LERI Does Not Cover a Crash

The product’s own FAQ is the load-bearing document. LERI says it is a connection platform, not a transportation provider, and that crash paper stays with the people who get in the car.

No. LERI is not a transportation provider. We are a connection platform for Rutgers students to arrange rides. LERI does not provide insurance coverage, and all insurance, documentation, and transportation responsibilities remain with drivers and passengers. All users participate at their own risk.

LERI FAQ, lerirides.com

The same page says the service does not provide insurance coverage and that LERI is a campus ride marketplace, not a traditional hail app. Drivers post routes in advance. If no one is going your way, you wait for the next post.

Uber and Lyft sit on a different stack. Those companies sell paid booked rides on personal cars and wrap the trip in platform insurance once a request is accepted. LERI collects $5 through Stripe, pays the student $4, and writes that users ride at their own risk. The four safety tools in the app are identity, profiles, stars, and choice. None of them is a liability policy.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners, the state regulators’ body, notes that personal auto policies exclude livery when a car carries people for pay. That exclusion can hit liability, medical benefits in no-fault states, collision, comprehensive, and uninsured-motorist cover. New Jersey law also lets a private auto policy drop coverage while a personal car is used on a digital network for a paid booked ride.

A student who treats LERI like splitting gas with a classmate may still be writing a fare. The price does not change with distance. The app takes a cut. Stripe runs the card. That is the pattern insurers read as for-hire use, and the FAQ does not argue otherwise.

What New Jersey Requires on a Paid Prearranged Ride

New Jersey’s Transportation Network Company Safety and Regulatory Act requires a digital ride company, its driver, or both to carry primary auto insurance that knows the car is being used for booked paid trips. While a passenger is in the car, the floor is $1.5 million in liability coverage, plus $10,000 in medical payments for the driver and $1.5 million in uninsured and underinsured motorist cover.

While the driver is logged in and waiting, the statute still wants primary liability of at least $50,000 per person, $100,000 per incident, and $25,000 for property, along with personal-injury protection and uninsured-motorist cover. If the driver’s policy lapses, the company’s policy has to respond from the first dollar and defend the claim. Drivers must be able to show that proof after a wreck.

NEW JERSEY FLOORS DURING A PAID BOOKED RIDE

• Liability: At least $1.5 million for death, bodily injury, and property damage while a rider is in the car.
• Driver medical payments: At least $10,000 per person per incident, for the driver only.
• Uninsured motorist: At least $1.5 million while the ride is underway.
• Waiting period: At least $50,000 / $100,000 / $25,000 in primary liability before a request is accepted.

This article is not a finding that LERI is an unlicensed transportation network company. It is a finding that the statute’s dollar floors exist, that LERI’s FAQ offers none of them, and that a student driver on a personal policy is the person who finds out after the fact. Background checks, driving-record screens, and a marker in the window are also part of that statute. LERI’s driver path asks for student status and a license, then lets the person post a route.

The HELIX Shuttle Started in July

Rutgers already moves people at a scale no student board can match. The university has called its network the largest campus system in the country, with a fleet of 60 buses serving 55,000 to 70,000 students, faculty, and staff a day. Academy Bus, which won a multi-year contract, said the university moves over 6 million passengers a year.

Those buses are free on New Brunswick. Riders do not show ID during normal hours. Academy took Newark on January 20, 2026, and New Brunswick and Camden on July 1, 2026, and switched tracking to TripShot the same July day.

THE HAND-OFF ON CAMPUS TRANSIT

1. January 20, 2026: Academy Bus starts Newark campus service.
2. July 1, 2026: Academy starts New Brunswick and Camden, and TripShot becomes the tracking app.
3. July 20, 2026: The HELIX pilot starts, running 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. every 35 minutes between RBHS on Busch and the new Health and Life Sciences Exchange downtown.
4. September 7, 2026: Transportation Services runs a modified Labor Day timetable, with no Newark or Camden buses that day.

The official New Brunswick page lists free campus buses across New Brunswick on weekday letter routes and weekend loops, with ADA boarding on the fleet. Hours are 6:00 a.m. to 3:30 a.m. Monday through Thursday and 24 hours Friday through Sunday. The Knight Mover night van covers 3:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. Monday through Thursday and asks for a university ID.

A University Senate resolution, brought with the student group OverRide, listed unpredictable driver breaks, crowding, uneven arrivals, and weak lighting at stops, and it asked Academy to act. Tamarkin does not treat a better bus as a threat. He has said a working campus system is the point of building a stopgap.

If the Rutgers bus system becomes so good to the point where LERI is no longer needed, that’s a win.

Elliott Tamarkin, LERI chief developer

NetID and Five Stars Are the Safety Stack

Tamarkin hangs the product on four pillars, and the company FAQ repeats them. They are social tools, and they are not a substitute for the $1.5 million floor in state ride law.

FOUR CHECKS INSIDE THE APP

• Rutgers-only access: Accounts go through NetID, Rutgers email, and student ID, so the car is supposed to hold only students.
• Social profiles: Riders see school, major, class year, clubs, completed trips, and reviews before they book.
• Mandatory ratings: Both sides leave a star score after every trip, with an optional written note, which Tamarkin said lets students validate one another.
• Mutual choice: Passengers pick a posted ride and a driver; drivers accept or skip requests, so neither side is auto-paired.

Women can filter for women drivers, and women drivers can take only women passengers, the FAQ says. In-app chat and live tracking cover the walk to the curb. Tamarkin has stressed the last pillar most: a passenger should never sit in a car they did not pick, and a driver should never carry someone they did not accept.

That is a real difference from a street hail. It does not pay a hospital bill. It does not repair a borrowed Civic. It does not name Rutgers as an extra insured. The store page still leads with “Faster, Safer Rides at Rutgers,” and safer here means known classmates, not a platform policy.

Two Fraternities Supply the First Drivers

Connor Walker, a recent Rutgers Business School graduate, is the public face on Instagram. The reels put him at campus stops and tell students to get a LERI instead of the bus, and Tamarkin’s team has used that feed to pull traffic. The app has also partnered with Chi Psi and Sigma Pi to grow the driver list.

View this post on Instagram

Greek houses have cars, regular hops between campuses, and a built-in roster. That is a practical way to seed a marketplace that only works when someone is already driving. It is also how a $4 seat becomes a habit inside a small social graph, which is the hidden labor pool: students who were going to class anyway, now taking pay for a seat their personal policy may not price.

Tamarkin’s longer aim is other campuses. Day to day, he has said the work is still Rutgers. The store page talks about all five New Brunswick campuses and hotspots near bus stations, which is the tell. LERI is not replacing the 60-bus grid. It is skimming the trips where a classmate’s car is already pointed the right way.

The 600-plus sign-ups on the site are still a rounding error next to 55,000 to 70,000 people on the buses each day. They are large enough for one bad left turn on a $5 fare. Academy’s contract, the HELIX pilot, and TripShot are the university’s answer to OverRide. LERI’s answer is a scarlet iPhone board, a $4 seat, and a sentence that says the risk stays with the students who tap confirm.

Tamarkin still wants the buses to get good enough that his app is unnecessary. Until that happens, the FAQ is the contract the 600-plus sign-ups actually have, and it leaves the crash with the people in the car.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of a student-built campus app, a company FAQ, and New Jersey ride-insurance statutes. It is for information only and is not legal advice, insurance advice, or a ruling on whether any person or company must hold a transportation-network permit. Readers who drive passengers for pay, or who ride in a personal car that was booked through an app, should talk with a New Jersey-licensed insurance agent or an attorney before they rely on a personal auto policy. Fares, user counts, app terms, contractor schedules, and statute text reflect the cited listings and can change.