Right after the bell rings at 3:50 p.m., senior Suhana Pathak rushes to grab her phone from the phone holder and opens the SV Hopper app, refreshing the screen repeatedly in hopes of securing a ride. Sometimes she gets lucky when a ride appears within the first couple of tries. Other days, she waits in an empty bus circle for over 30 minutes, long after most students and staff have left campus. While schools like Cupertino High School mention that SV Hopper would bring faster, more accessible transportation to students, experiences like Pathak’s tell a different story.
Introduced in partnership with the City of Cupertino, SV Hopper is an app that offers micro-transit service to residents within the city. Transit and Transportation Planner Matt Schroeder mentions that the program is funded significantly by grants from the Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program and the Transportation Fund for Clean Air. Although SV Hopper aims to improve mobility and reduce solar car trips, students say the service is unpredictable and slow, often leaving them alone on campus with little clarity about when, or if, their ride will arrive.
“SV Hopper was not designed as a student-only shuttle, but is available as a transportation alternative to make student trips easier by adding another option besides driving, carpooling, VTA or walking and biking,” Schroeder said. “The main goal is to attract motorists to a sustainable and affordable transportation option, providing access to transit, jobs, health care, school or other activities. The program was initially conceived as first-mile/last-mile (FLM) service, a transportation strategy designed to bridge the gap between a person’s home or destination/regional transit station, especially Caltrain.”
Pathak has been using SV Hopper more frequently this year for academic and extracurricular commitments, such as after-school chemistry tutoring. With both of her parents working, she depends on SV Hopper but it is difficult for her to get a ride on time. The unpredictability disrupts her schedule and sometimes makes her miss important meetings.
“It eats into my homework time or my other commitments,” Pathak said. “This one time, I had to cancel an important college counselor meeting because I couldn’t get a ride home in time. I thought it would take me 30 minutes, but it ended up taking an hour just to get home.”
Junior Oishani Chatterjee has used SV Hopper since her freshman year and waits around 20 minutes every day for a ride. On busier days like Tuesdays and Thursdays after school, her wait can stretch to 45 minutes, often with no one else around. Chatterjee says ride availability has become even more difficult due to the district’s new phone policy. Without access to phones during the day, students can no longer book rides early. As a result, now students can only book rides after the bell, when wait times spike and ride availability drops, making finding rides even more frustrating.
“You never know when the ride is going to actually come,” Chatterjee said. “If you start booking it 20 minutes before the bell rings, you can get picked up within 10 to 15 minutes after school ends. But if you wait after the bell, since we can not use our phones because of the phone policy, the ride takes so long, you won’t get home before five. Either way, I end up waiting, or if my friends are still at school, I’ll ask them to drive. It is sometimes uncomfortable when the office closes soon after school ends and I’m all alone.”
Aside from long delays, Chatterjee and Pathak report inconsistent pickups and drop-offs, presenting another challenge. Cars often arrive further away from the indicated pick up point on the app, forcing students to cross heavy traffic hurriedly, and in some cases, drivers mark riders as “no show” even when the student was waiting in the correct spot. Riders also note that although driver phone numbers are provided to them, attempts to contact them often go unanswered. Schroeder acknowledged these ongoing issues, noting they are actively trying to improve these inconsistencies in wait times, pick-up locations and communication.
“Both the Cities of Cupertino and Santa Clara are aware that wait times can be long right after school,” Schroeder said. “Demand spikes in a very short window when the bell rings, and many ride requests come in at once. We’ve made adjustments, like relocating and consolidating some pickup points away from crowded school entrances to help vehicles move more efficiently, and we continue to monitor after-school performance to tweak the service.”
Despite frustrations, students agree the app’s interface is user-friendly. They appreciate its features like live location tracking, and they note that driver interactions are usually positive. Still, students suggest that more cars and clear pickup locations would help make their rides more efficient.
To address that, Schroeder also mentions that as part of the TIRCP grant, SV Hopper is scheduled to expand service into north Santa Clara starting July 1, 2026. The vehicle fleet will also be increased as part of this expansion. But for now, students who use SV Hopper say that the service is not the “faster and easier” mode of transportation it was advertised to be. Instead, it has become a new daily uncertainty, one that students hope will be addressed soon. Schroeder encourages riders to continue reporting such issues so adjustments can be made.
“A few things can make a difference,” Schroeder said. “These include: Be at your pickup spot before your driver arrives. Board quickly when the vehicle arrives. Cancel requests right away if your plans change, instead of holding a ride ‘just in case.’ If in a group, avoid requesting multiple trips at once from different phones. Use the feedback tools, in-app or through the city, to let us know about recurring issues. When riders do these things, it helps the system move faster and reduces wait times for everyone.”
