For Employees

Employees are welcome to participate in all relevant sustainable transportation events and programs such as carpooling, bicycling, walking, transit use, and riding the River Hawk Roadster. In addition, there are some programs, listed below, which are available exclusively for university employees.

Emergency Ride Home

University employees who take a sustainable mode of transportation two days per week or more are eligible to sign up for a free Emergency Ride Home program. When you sign up, you can be reimbursed for a taxi or car rental home up to four times per year in the event of an illness or family emergency involving you or a member of your carpool. Sign up at www.commute.com today!

Zipcar for Departments

Zipcar is an on-campus, on-demand, car rental service which lets you rent by the hour or by the day, with the price of gas, insurance, and car maintenance included. Zipcars are located on campus and can be unlocked with a membership card after making a reservation online or on your smart phone. Your department can create an account which university employees can then join and use in lieu of mileage reimbursement, keeping miles off personal vehicles and enabling employees who walk, bicycle, carpool, and take transit to work to have an option when they need to drive for work-related trips.

Joining an existing departmental account - Go to https://www.zipcar.com/universities/university-of-massachusetts-lowell and click on "Join Now" under "I'd Like to Join my Department's Existing Account." It usually takes about one week to get approved and receive your membership card in the mail. If you don't see your department listed, email letsgo@uml.edu or call 978-934-1866 to have one set up.

Setting up a departmental account – When you set up an account for your department, employees who join Zipcar will be able to bill that departmental account whenever they use a Zipcar to make a work-related trip. Zipcar will bill your department directly for each trip. Cars on campus rent at rates starting around $7, including gas. Your department will also be charged a $25 annual membership fee for each person who joins. In many cases, using Zipcar will cost the same or less as mileage reimbursement, but departments should make a determination of cost on a case-by-case basis – the Zipcar website will give you a price for a whole trip before you finalize each car reservation.

Sign up today at zipcar.