UTS's location in Ultimo — just south of the city centre — makes it theoretically accessible by public transport. And for students coming from the inner suburbs, it is. But for students coming from the Northern Beaches, Manly, or the outer suburbs, the reality is a long bus journey or a multi-leg commute that adds an hour or more to each end of the day.
Carpooling from Manly to UTS via Herdy takes around 25 minutes by car. The equivalent bus journey involves a bus to Spit Bridge or Military Road, then either a connection or a walk — and that's assuming buses run on time, which on peak-hour Northern Beaches routes is far from guaranteed.
The numbers from Herdy's platform reflect how much demand there already is. The Manly to Haymarket corridor has 39 active rides in the last two months alone. These are real drivers already making the trip every week — people who live in Manly, drive to UTS or the city for work or study, and have an empty seat in the car.
But the practical case is only part of the story. Uni is one of the most social periods of anyone's life — and the commute, often treated as dead time, can actually be one of the best places to meet people. When you share a regular ride with someone from your suburb who goes to the same university, you spend 25 minutes a day talking to someone outside your immediate social circle. That's more real conversation than most tutorials, and it happens naturally without anyone needing to organise it.
Several Herdy users have found study partners, group project members, and lasting friendships through regular carpooling. It tends to happen with drivers and passengers who do the same route on the same days for a full semester — which is exactly the pattern Herdy is designed to support.
