Students can share their ideas on bettering Late Night Ride at a forum hosted by Student Association senators 5 p.m. Wednesday.

Late Night Ride is a free door-to-door car service that gives rides to students, staff and faculty. The service is run by the Department of Public Safety 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. daily. The survey began March 24 and ended on March 28 and consisted of questions related to complaints Late Night Ride users have been sending in to the SA Senate.

The forum will be in the Holmes Student Center, Room 305.

The surveys were distributed online, via email and by hand to students by the Senate, which received more than 500 responses.

“For an NIU survey this is great. I was astounded with the results,” said SA Senate Speaker Dillon Domke. “Usually you get a survey in your e-mail through NIU and it says, ‘Take this and you’ll be entered in a raffle to win something.’ We didn’t have to do that and got great numbers.”

Senators said the majority of the students who took the survey have never used its services. As of the fall 2013 semester, dispatchers received 38,000 calls for rides.

Domke and SA Senator Alexander Martin, chairman of the University Services Committee, said they hope they can make the service more student-oriented by enforcing the OneCard as a way of accessing Late Night.

Domke said many of the users of Late Night Ride are members of the DeKalb community who use it as a taxi service for their needs, which include shopping.

“You don’t know who you’re riding with,” Domke said. “Would you want to ride if there was a drug dealer who was armed? That’s my question to the students. If I knew there were criminals on [Late Night Ride], I wouldn’t want to ride.”

Domke and Martin said having more community members using the service makes wait times longer. Senators have also discussed creating routes around campus for each of the five Late Night Ride shuttles.

“Many students think the service is bad because the phones are too busy,” said NIU Police Chief Tom Phillips. “But we have two dispatchers stationed all night that are answering calls nonstop, sending out drivers who are overwhelmed with the running around.”

Phillips, Domke and Martin are planning to make changes   — like requiring students to use their OneCards for identification and shortening wait times to the service for next semester.

“I don’t see why things can’t get done,” Martin said. “We have a new [police] chief right now who is very dedicated, as well as Speaker Domke, who is very advocated to making change. I feel like if we work very hard and collaborate together within the next few weeks, I don’t see why these changes can be effective by next semester.”